Operation: There Is No Operation
by Karkadinn
Summary: Supreme Leader 362, peeved at the subversion of her authority, resolves to personally go into space after Numbuh One and get him back from the Galactic KND no matter what the cost. But does she have ulterior motives? And Father's along for the ride....
1. Chapter 1

Operation There is No Operation

**Cheerfully discounting the live action segments of the KND finale episode.**

Chapter 1

Fifty-seven 'urgent' reports regarding everything from deadly papercuts to too-thin toilet paper down. Only a hundred and twelve more 'urgent' reports left to go before she could take a lunch break. Yes, today was looking to be a swell day to be Supreme Leader of the Kids Next Door, wasn't it?

But when three operatives came in her office, one bearing a very distinctive tie, all thoughts of paperwork left Numbuh 362's mind. The first two were... well, as Supreme Leader she should never allow herself to consider an operative _unimportant_, but that was just the word she wanted to apply to them in comparison to the prisoner they were toting between them.

"Supreme Leader, you requested this operative brought to you immediately upon capture, sir!"

She put down the reports carefully, and beamed at them. "Yes, yes I did. Good work. You can let go of him now. I'd like a moment alone with our friend."

The operatives exchanged glances, while the prisoner started looking understandably nervous. "Are you sure that's wise, sir?" the second operative asked.

"It'll be fine. Go on... you know, there's a hotdog eating contest taking place the next floor down if you're interested?" The operatives drooled and were out with barely a pause for formal goodbyes, and Numbuh 362 smiled to herself. Kids were so easy to manipulate. And she ought to know, being one of them herself. She _was_ still a kid, after all. Letting her gaze linger for a quiet moment, the prisoner fidgeted, straining at candy cane handcuffs that wouldn't be breaking any time soon. "So, I take it the snot-drying injection worked as our scientists thought it would," she put out there as a conversation starter.

Numbuh Infinity smiled awkwardly, giving up his futile attempts to break free. "Yes, sir. I'm afraid my little teleportation trick is all dried up. I confess I wasn't at all prepared to have my escape mechanism blocked off like that."

A flicker of anger, long buried, burnt its way to the surface of Numbut 362's mind. There were issues tangled up in this that weren't really anything to do with Numbuh Infinity. Frustrating issues. She'd probably end up acting a little irrational if she let herself go. But then, maybe some intimidation would get the self-confident operative to cooperate quicker.

"And what _did_ you expect, Jerome?" To her satisfaction, he flinched at the use of his real name. It had been carefully calculated to remind him of her position and make him feel vulnerable. Clearly it was working even better than she'd dared hope. "Did you think the Supreme Leader would just shrug and let it all slide? A blatant shadow organization within the KND, working for its own goals, completely outside of the normal command structure? Independent and answerable to no one? What _did_ you expect me to do about it? Ignore it, maybe?"

Numbuh Infinity visibly gulped. "N-no sir. We, we aren't answerable to no one, there are higher authorities-"

"_Higher than me?_" she snapped, the flicker of anger threatening to turn into a real fire and burn something. Was this how Father felt in his rages, maybe? Full of frustrated rage, all the wild destructiveness of a tantrum but tangled up in a shell of 'mature' poise and self-control.

"Well, y-yes, that is to say, um-" Numbuh Infinity looked like he wanted to hide.

And just like that, fire turned to ice. Numbuh 362 smiled, and it wasn't a nice kind of smile. "Then maybe you can tell me why no one ever told me there was a higher authority. Why the leader of the entire planet's kids in the fight against adulthood had no idea about any of it, until you guys slipped up and got too obvious when you were recruiting Numbuh One. He might keep secrets fine, but the rest of his team sure doesn't."

Infinity tried for a pacifying tactic, which amused her. She'd been brooding over this for far too long, had replayed how the conversation was supposed to go far too often, to just relax now. "Please, try to understand," he said in his most soothing voice, hands up in a reconciliatory gesture, "we never meant to weaken your authority. It's just a matter of jurisdictions, you see? You have Earth. Other Supreme Leaders have other planets. And coordinating it all is the Grand Supreme Command, seeing to the interplanetary business and such..."

"You may not have meant to weaken my authority, but that's just what you did when you executed orders behind my back! You've been here a long time Jerome. Tell me, how many of the other Supreme Leaders knew about all this? Did Chad know?"

"Not while he was leading the KND," Infinity replied promptly. "Higherups consider it a... conflict of interest. After he became a double agent, we talked to him. As far as I know, sir, you're the first Supreme Leader on this planet to be aware of the Galactic KND."

"Great." She turned to face the window, so he wouldn't see the disgusted sneer on her face. But she couldn't quite stop the sarcastic words coming out of her mouth. "First Supreme Leader to know she's not a real leader of _anything_, don't I feel super."

"Please, sir. It's not like that. The limited operations we take on behalf of the Galactic KND aren't even relevant to your job-"

Quick as a whip, Numbuh 362 turned on him. The desk that had been in the way was very quickly not in the way anymore, and she wasn't sure if she'd sidestepped it to get to him or just vaulted straight over it, the heated buzzing in her head making it difficult to think. Suddenly, her voice had the desire to pull an imitation of Numbuh 86. "HOW _DARE_ YOU STEAL ONE OF MY TOP OPERATIVES AND THEN TELL ME IT'S NOT RELEVANT!"

He cowered, trembling. "P-please, sir! You had a replacement all lined up, didn't you? Y-your brother... and you h-hardly seemed particularly close to Numbuh One when we sent him to the Galactic KND, after all... we were just doing our best for kids everywhere, and surely it hasn't cost you anything, except m-maybe some dignity? I'm sorry if you feel we hurt your public image as Supreme Leader, we'll do anything to make it up to you! I swear!"

The public image? Well, yes, this was about that. She was upset that this shadow organization had undermined her authority and by extension the authority of the entire KND. That was why she was angry. No other reason. Numbuh One just happened to be involved as a side issue. But that side issue would be the one she would clamp on to and not let go, if only because it stood for other things. As she felt herself calm, she realized she'd actually clenched one fist and half-raised it as though she'd been going to hit Infinity. Stupid. Talk about having a Father moment. At least there weren't any other operatives to see their Supreme Leader acting like this.

"Anything, huh?" she asked, very gently.

He seemed to sense what she'd planned, eyes widening so she could actually see them through the shades. "Anything that would not violate the authority of the Galactic KND, of course."

Numbuh 362 looked at him like he was a bug squirming on the carpet. "I guess telling me where Numbuh One is so we can bring him back from playing hooky would fall under that violation stuff, right?"

His gaze drifted to the floor. "Yes, sir," he said timidly but with dignity. "It would."

"Too bad. Look, Jerome. The jig's up. Game's over. Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred bucks. You can either tell me everything I want to know now, right here in private, kid to kid... or you can tell me later, whether you want to or not, disgraced operative to Supreme Leader. What'll it be?"

Watching Numbuh Infinity steel himself in preparation, she couldn't help but feel a little twisted pride. No amount of mere talking was going to change his mind, he was sticking to his guns to the end. She'd have to make things really uncomfortable for the poor guy, but he'd brought it on himself. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll tell you anything you want to know within my authority, but I can't tell you how to get in touch with Numbuh One or any other member of the Galactic KND. If that means I'm a traitor and have to be decommissioned, then just get it over with."

"Decommissioned? Don't be silly, Jerome." She meant to go for a scary, sort of villainy voice, but instead she just sounded tired and depressed. Which she guessed she was. Dang it. She took his sunglasses off and put them in a pocket. If she let him have the things where he was going, they'd just get trashed. If he still wanted to try to be a decent operative afterwards, she could give them back to him. "I'm not going to erase your memories when there's even the tiniest chance I can get what I want out of them. If you want, I can get you decommissioned after the interrogation, once you've told us everything. But not before."

He blinked, and started to panic again. "Th-the interrogation?!"

She ignored him and picked up a tin can and string, calling in on an obscure section of the Moon Base science division. "Hey, guys, get me Numbuh V8 will you? We've got a new prisoner for him to get 'friendly' with, if you know what I mean."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Sir, are yeh really sure you should be relyin' on that _creepy_ boy for so much sens'tive information?" 86 continued to whine as she walked the hallway with Numbuh 362.

Thinking it over, 362 decided it was interesting that Numbuh 86 had stressed, not the word _boy_, as usual, but the word _creepy_. Some things overrode the boy versus girl war. She couldn't blame Numbuh 86 for being nervous, everyone was nervous about V8. That was why he was good at his job. Maybe it was time to explain a little bit about why Numbuh V8 was trusted for his position in the KND.

"Do you know Numbuh V8 has three brothers, 86?"

"Ugh, so many boys in one house, sounds like a catastrophe waitin' t'happen."

"That's not my point. All three were highly-placed members of the KND, just like him. Only they were field operatives... field operatives who turned out to be double agents and betrayed various sectors to the teenagers."

"Stinkin' boys, can't expect any better from their braindead lot!"

"V8 is loyal to us. _Very_ loyal. The guy hates teenagers and adults more than any other kid I've ever met. He wouldn't do anything to help them no matter what it cost him, because he feels like he has to make up for the mistakes of his family, get it?"

"Ah dunno, sir, it sounds more like he's just tryin' tah fake it long enough t'do some damage before he jumps ship like his filthy kin, if yeh ask meh."

"Which I didn't. Don't you have duties to see to instead of following me like a lost puppy?"

Numbuh 86 winced and drifted off, unused to being directly reprimanded like that. Numbuh 362 felt a bit guilty over it, but she had important things to do, things she couldn't do with people watching over her shoulder. She'd make it up to Fanny later.

It was easy to find her way through the semi-controlled chaos of the science wing towards V8's little secluded section. Even someone totally unfamiliar with the place would have been able to find it, as it was the only set of rooms in the whole wing that was disturbingly _quiet_. KND scientists were loud, as a rule, but V8's interrogation chamber was soundproofed with their thickest stale marshmallow padding, and the vegetable splicerization area was always as quiet as the sound of plants growing.

She walked past row after row of exotic, half-identifiable vegetables, trying not to look too close at any of them. Staring too long would just make her want to barf. It was even worse lately, since Numbuh V8 had started adding some really suspicious, mobile bits of Grandma Stuffum's food into his experiments. Some of the green things in the petrie dishes _moved_ now, in ways that made it seem like they knew someone was walking around nearby. At least the smell was fine. V8 kept his smellier concoctions, like the creamed cornenades, sealed up tight with an almost adult kind of neatness and paranoia. Yeah, he was scarily adult for a kid... but he hated adults. She felt comfortable around him, a kid even more professional than Numbuh One. There was no reason to fear a kid like this. So long as you were on the right side, of course.

Having prepared herself for the inevitable disgusting sight before walking in on the interrogation, she didn't barf when she saw what V8 was doing with Infinity. All under her orders, of course, even if she'd left the specifics intentionally vague. Still, she felt a bit green and had to hold herself very still for a second while she fought down a wave of sickness. Numbuh 362 had never imagined such horrible things could be done with carrots. Infinity was a shadow of his former self, all dignity abandoned, just another kid quivering and curled up into himself, desperately hoping he wouldn't have to taste any more vegetables.

Numbuh V8 himself was a tiny hunched figure in a corner, scribbling observations in a notebook. He glanced over at her as she came in, and raised one of his hilariously tiny pencil-thin eyebrows.

"Impatient this time, sir? Usually I get at least a couple days. We haven't even gotten through the steamed stage yet."

"Do you have anything to report, Numbuh V8?"

"He's putting up a bit of a fight, but nothing I haven't dealt with before. I expect I'll have to move on to stronger veggies than carrots before long, though. I've got a vague set of coordinates for Numbuh One, and some general stuff about the Galactic KND's structure, but not a lot of details. Give me a little more time, though, and-"

"That'll do, V8. Good work. You won't have to go through the whole process with this prisoner." It was a bit awful, to see how ashamed Numbuh Infinity looked at having spilled even that much info after his previous defiance. And how he tried to hide how relieved he was that the interrogation wouldn't go on any more. But no one held out against V8 for long. Usually he only interrogated teenagers and adults, prisoners who were partially immunificated to veggies already. And he _broke_ them. A kid like Numbuh Infinity, still fully unused to the hideous taste of vegetables, didn't stand a chance. It would be lying to herself to not admit she felt bad about it all. But no permanent damage would be done, and the depth of the splinter cell's backstabbery made it so there was clearly no other way to break them.

V8 shrugged, clearly not really caring one way or the other. He had a curious mind and loved experimenting to find out new ways to use veggies, but he wasn't a sadist. He didn't _like_ making people taste nasty things, it was just his job. As far as he was concerned, an interrogation over early just meant more time for him to do other things, and that was yet another reason to trust him. "Okay. Want me to call the decommissioning squad for him now?"

"That's up to him," she replied solemnly, looking at Numbuh Infinity rather than V8. The black operative seemed to find some courage in looking back at her.

"I-I'd like to keep on being an operative... and fight a-adult tyranny in any way I'm st-still allowed to... sir." The 'sir' was twisted bitterly, and it made Numbuh 362's heart ache to hear it, but she didn't let any of that show on her face. Infinity'd brought it on himself!

"As of now, you're reassigned under Numbuh 86, then. She'll keep an eye on you."

"Oh, goody," Infinity mumbled, turning his head to try and spit out remains of carrot.

"It won't come out, you have to swallow," V8 told him testily. "Those carrots were splicerized to bond to the inside of your mouth like glue. If you keep trying to spit them out, they'll just turn mushy and taste even worse." At a gesture from 362, he followed her out of the dim little chamber and into the better-lit vegetable nursery.

"Well, that was the shortest session I've ever had," he said cheerfully, letting his formality drop a notch. Being in charge of extracting vital info from the enemy meant that he got to talk to the Supreme Leader more than most science geeks, and they'd gotten familiar enough with each other to be... not really friends, but whatever the thing between professionalism and friendship was, a relaxed working relationship. And even _relaxed_, he was _still_ more formal than most kids she knew... like, for instance, Fanny. "Can't blame you for not wanting to put one of our own through the wringer more than necessary, of course, even if he _is_ a traitor."

"I'm not sure I'd call him that," she disagreed slowly and thoughtfully. "But he's definitely not as clear on the chain of command as he should be. I figure some time under someone as bossy as 86'll remind him about the importance of _official_ chain of command. Anyway, V8, I wanted to ask you something." She hesitated, wishing she'd bothered to poke around in his file to find his real name. But then, maybe getting personal would've just made things weird. Stay professional and they'd be the way they always were, and it was the way he was professional that made her consider him for this in the first place, right? The way he treated everything like a very calm job, not letting his heart get in the way. And his loyalty, of course. There wasn't anyone else in the KND with those traits that she'd had more than passing contact with. Numbuh Five came _close_, but had loyalties that made her totally bad for the mission. "Do you think you could take some time off from your splicerization stuff to help me with something important?"

Although he was a total workaholic about his veggie experiments, he didn't even hesitate in answering. "Totally, sir. What is it you need me for?"

"Something vital to the future of the KND. To keep the chain of command... clear... to _everyone_. But it'll work better if it's done quiet. So you can't tell anyone. And there's no telling how long it'd take."

Numbuh V8 actually looked a little proud that she'd confide in him something so apparently important, puffing up like a penguin. It made her grin inside. At least _someone_ still valued her opinions as Supreme Leader. "I'd be happy to help any way I can! But my parents'll get suspicious if I'm gone for too long..."

She waved a hand idly. "Please, don't you know me better than that by now, V8? I'll have it covered. Our robot doubles only get better every day. A science geek like you should know that."

"Meh. Robots. Never liked 'em. Too metally, and sparky, and... meh. So when do I start?"

"We," she corrected with a smirk. "Start getting packed. We'll be going into space tomorrow, headed for those coordinates you got from Infinity."

"You're going after him," he mumbled, goggle-eyed. "Supreme Leader, sir, are you sure this is really a mission you should be on personally? I mean, you're not really suited to-"

"It's going to be me because I'm the only one stubborn enough to get that shiny-headed James Bond wannabe back," she interrupted him coldly, leaning closer, gaze intense. "And you're coming with me because you're the only one I trust to help without letting your feelings screw it all up. Or are you trying to tell me you're not up to it?"

V8 stiffened, offended, thin little eyebrows skittering all over his forehead before he got them under control. "I'll be ready, sir. Just give the word."

"Good." She settled down, eyes still looking at Numbuh V8, soon to be her only help in the great big hostile environment of space. "No one cuts and runs from the KND," she said, not sure why she was saying it, talking to the universe more than to him. "No one."

He just nodded, wisely indulging her mood, looking more than a little nervous. It occurred to Numbuh 362 that she'd actually never seen him nervous before, and wondered if that meant something about her or not.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As 362 finished the last report for the day, five more were tossed on her desk. She let out a sigh. It would have been nice to start her little mission with a clean slate on the leadership end so she would have less to worry about when she came back, but that clearly not going to happen. There was always more work. Well, she would still be working... just for something with more immediate ramifications for the KND than filling out some authorization forms on geographical recruitment policy changes. The KND needed him back more than it needed those forms signed. Even if he was reckless, and sloppy, and arrogant, and losing his touch, and probably figured he was too _good_ for the KND...

What a jerk, she didn't even know why she was going to these efforts to get him back in the first place. Grinding her teeth, she set all the papers down, straightening the stack with her fingers till it was totally perfect and square. She'd be leaving the paperwork but she'd be leaving it _organized_. Of course, 86 would probably just toss more on top in a haphazard way while she was gone, but that was out of her control.

"Fanny?" she called out sweetly to 86, who was turning to leave for some busywork or other. 86 stiffened up at the personal name, probably figuring she'd done something wrong.

"Err, yes, Supreme Leader?" she said nervously, turning around.

"I'm taking my vacation now."

The redhead brightened up considerably. "Och, glad to hear't Supreme Leader! You've been deservin' a break now for a long time, we've all been tellin' yeh. EVERYOOOONE! SUPREME LEADER'S ON VAAACAAATIOOOONNN!"

362 couldn't help but chuckle as Fanny put her lungs to typical use. Some kids like to say that those bellows went all the way from the top of the Moonbase to the deepest roots without any help from two by four tech. While that wasn't true, of course, the girl could still holler loud enough to be heard clearly through multiple walls. So it wasn't surprising when a dozen or so operatives immediately ran into the room. One of them put a lei around her neck. Another gave her a glass of iced pink lemonade with a curly straw, which she gave a polite sip. A third offered her a plate of fresh-baked miniature lemon poppyseed muffins, which 362 waved off gently, worried that she would be eating some generous kid's lunch. One of them was even waving a little hammock around, like he expected her to hop into it while he stretched it and held it up with his arms. The rest gathered round and offered enthusiastic advice on tourist spots, beaches, and the like. Some of them even had fliers, probably getting some kind of kickbacks like free cookies or Nerf balls. As expected, operatives from Sector J were the most prominent.

Heh, what a crazy little whirlwind of 'relaxation.' 362 just sat back and smiled wryly and watched it for a little while. The Vacation Clause was allowed to be used by any given Supreme Leader once only, and was made up to keep the busy leaders of the KND from going into stress overload. Any leader could go on vacation for up to a month, leaving the second in command in charge, and come back later and resume his or her regular duties. The time limit would be annoying, but not unworkable... she'd just have to hustle, that was all. Most leaders didn't use the clause, thinking of it as a sign of weakness, but leaders who'd worked really hard, like her, weren't looked down upon for using it. In fact, it was sometimes used as a subtle way to hint that the second in command was being groomed for next Supreme Leader, which was probably why 86 was looking so perky now. It helped make up for snapping at 86 the day before, too.

"I'm going to do a little space travel for a few weeks. Bunjee jump on Mars, that kinda stuff," she explained to 86 while enjoying a foot massage from one of the J operatives. "Ooohh, right there. Yeah," she sighed happily, toes wiggling. "I'll take one of the ships that's about to be mothballed so we don't lose anything important from the space fleet. One of those big old dusty clunkers."

They had an ample supply of larger ships, but most of them weren't in use simply because they didn't have the numbers to keep the ships clean and functioning all the time. That, and the fact that the crews were lazy and slacked off a lot on all the boring maintenance. She already had one fixed up enough to be spaceworthy for a little while, in fact. The computer would handle almost all the actual piloting. The actual spacetravel wouldn't be bad at all, if they didn't get into any dogfights. If someone _did_ attack them in space, they were probably doomed, but that was a risk she was willing to take. V8 would understand. You couldn't just let people _leave_ the KND whenever they felt like it. Numbuh 1 was _theirs_, he didn't belong to some spacey shadow KND organization! They'd been wrong to steal him like that, and she was going to get them to see that... with words, preferably, but she was ready for the other way too if it had to be like that. Her luggage was already packed, and resting innocently between the fashion magazines and her Gameboy were a variety of weapons of good old reliable two by four creation. V8 would also be bringing his own little... tools... along. Stuff she was probably better off not thinking about too hard.

86 walked her to the ship, and 362 gave her plenty of detailed instructions along the way. Not because 86 really had to have them or because 362 needed or wanted to give them, but because 86 needed them to feel important and useful. The girl was going to be in command of the whole Moonbase and Earth's KND sectors for at least a week or two, after all. Hopefully 362 wouldn't come back to find everything in smoldering ruins. 86 could be brash.

Heh. Here she was thinking that _Fanny_ could be brash, when she, Rachel, Supreme Leader of the KND, was personally going off on an operative retrieval mission with no help other than an interrogation and vegetalogy specialist. Without letting anyone else know where she was going or why. Yeah, she was one big hypocrite alright. But she was fine with that. When she brought Numbuh 1 back, she could make up any sort of excuses or stories she wanted to to explain it. And he'd be _back_, and everyone would respect her more, especially _him_, since she would have beaten him. Really beaten him, instead of just keeping up and getting all winded in the process. That would make it all worth it.

She exchanged hugs with 86 just before boarding the ship, waving at all the operatives who'd trailed after to wish her a fun vacation. They weren't so bad, when you got down to it. They just needed someone to keep them in order, that was all. Still, it was kind of a relief to be alone in a nice quiet room in the ship, unburdened by incoming paperwork or complaints from operatives or demands for favors. Well, _almost_ alone. V8 had snuck on before her, and from the looks of it had been waiting right there just a few feet from the doorway ever since, pacing back and forth. She could tell he'd been walking in a tight little figure eight because he'd worn down the poofy carpet where he'd been walking.

"Ah, sir! Ready to go, are we? I took the liberty of putting the coordinates into the computer's autopilot, so we can head out at the push of a button."

"That sounds great. Could you help me with my bags?" She smiled wearily, hefting both her heavy, jammed almost to bursting suitcases a little further in. Bringing all this stuff was pointless, but the operatives had to think she was vacationing, and they would think that more if she packed for her 'vacation' like most girls did... by bringing everything including the kitchen sink.

V8 tried to help, but to her amusement, his spindly little arms were even weaker than hers, and he struggled and sweated and panted just carrying one of the suitcases. She tried not to laugh and let him do with just the one, lugging the other herself.

"By the way... ugh... sir... I was wondering... agh... this is a... secret... mission, erk... but won't they... miss me? Get suspicious that I... mrf, vanish at the same time... as your vacation?"

362 smiled a little. "You _can_ call me 362, ya know. We're gonna be in here together for a while." It was funny. Only with V8 would be a request to use her number be a _decrease_ in formality. "Besides, that's another reason I wanted you along. No one's gonna miss you. I'm basically the closest thing you've got to a friend, right?"

His eyebrows bunched up roughly before spreading out pencil-thin. "Ow. Just because it's... nph, _true_, doesn't mean you have to... _say_ it."

"Sorry, I don't have room to talk," she replied sympathetically, grabbing the suitcase she'd made him carry and going back to dragging both of them by way of apology. "86 didn't even invite me to her last slumber party, so whatever. No social lives is the price we pay for being good at what we do, right?"

"I guess so, si- uh, 362."

They got settled in, and began their officially nonexistent mission.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Exhaling with the weariness of a thousand disobeyed parents, Father inspected the latest report delivered to him. This one was one of the regular reconnaissances from the KND Moon Base. Adults had their ways of persuading unruly children to share information (mostly candy and ice cream-related ways), and he was usually roughly aware of any major KND-related happenings. It made settings traps just that much easier. But somehow it was never enough to turn the tide of the war. War was what it was, in the end, however it got dressed up. Kids hated adults, and adults hated kids. The two creatures had entirely opposing physiologies. That was why he had to delightfulize them, turn them into well-behaving children, against their will but for their own good. Lord knows the planet would have blown up into a million pieces by now if the rugrats had been left, like Peter Pan's Lost Boys, to do as they pleased.

It was hard for Father to focus on his duties lately. Ever since that thorn in his side Number One had vanished, it was hard to think about anything else. For one thing, it grated on him that one of the worst children ever should escape his discipline entirely after absconding with one of his personal belongings. It set a very bad example. More disturbing was the dark, chocolately, almost guilty feeling deep down inside him that whispered in his mind accusingly:

'_Losing a child is wrong. You don't LOSE them. If you don't know where they are, who knows what kinds of trouble they could get into?_'

His instincts were strongly predisposed towards control. He had to know where people were, what they were doing, why they were doing it. And, of course, they had to be doing the _right_ things. At the very worst, if he couldn't keep a firm grip on a child (which was all too common, especially these days), he should know their whereabouts so as to punish them properly or minimize the corruption of other children.

Every day he had to sit down at his desk and admit to himself that he _still_ didn't know where Nigel Uno was or what Nigel Uno was doing, was a day he had to admit his failure as an authority figure.

So Father had a tough time concentrating on the day to day work. He would have been depressed if he weren't so angry. But he forced himself to go on, because it was his duty and his responsibility to all the children. A parent couldn't just stop being a parent because one of the flock was lost, now could he? No, he just had to shepherd that much harder.

So he read the report, like countless others.

Only this time, for a rarity, something truly interesting caught his attention. Something he _knew_ to be odd and out of place and... potentially advantageous. The current leader of the KND, that spunky blonde girl who'd eaten through a wall of broccoli, was making use of the rarely-activated Vacation Clause. It didn't fit, not to his eyes. For one thing, it seemed contrary to her personality, especially lately given that she was supposed to be getting _more_ strict and serious, rather than more relaxed. It wasn't a good time for it, either, not with adult hostilities on the rise. Many adults were eager to prove themselves at least semi-competent in the wake up the capture the flag disaster that had made buffoons of them all, and that meant harsher control of kids. No, this wasn't the sort of thing that girl... 36... 1, was it? No, 362. This wasn't the sort of thing 362 would be likely to go for, not to eyes like his, used to analyzing coldly and ruthlessly. The KND from highest to lowest were gullible, of course, they would fall for anything and everything. That was part of being childish, after all. So of course _they_ didn't see anything wrong with it. But he was older, more mature, wiser. Better. No, something was definitely up.

It only got more interesting when he read the details. She'd gone off on some junkyard scrapheap of a ship, a ship far too large for her to maintain by herself effectively. Yet she'd gone alone. To tour outer space? That didn't sound like much of a vacation to him. She hadn't been noted as having any interest in exploration or flight previously, either. Suspicious.

No doubt about it, the girl was up to something. Smirking, he clenched the papers in his fist and turned them to ashes with no real effort. 362, current Supreme Leader of the KND, was alone, well isolated from other bad influences. This seemed like the perfect time for a field test of his new... toy.

A more patient man might have called up appropriate personnel for the job, but Father was not that patient, and had grown utterly sick and tired of the endless failures of his underlings. If you wanted something done _right_, do it yourself! This was a golden opportunity, and one he'd not waste. Especially not after the last Supreme Leader he'd recruited had turned out to be a double double agent! If he could get to 362, then there would be another, better chance to send the KND spiraling off into self-destruction, crushing the insanely rebellious attitudes of the children so they would be more pliable to adult care. There would be no slipups this time. He would see to it himself. Besides, he had just a little respect for any kid crazy enough to voluntarily eat broccoli, and the little girl deserved to be put in her place by a proper, worthy adult.

Still, Father was just paranoid enough to figure that some backup would be well and good, just in case anything unexpected happened. He couldn't anticipate _every_ possible action the girl would take, not when undelightfulized children were so brash that they didn't themselves know what they'd do from one moment to the next. There would be support, but very choice support. Nothing but the very best. He needed helpers who would obey him without hesitation or question, helpers who were used to fighting the KND but weren't too crucial to immediate operations on the planet.

Father had exactly five people in mind for the job.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

362 stared out into inky space at the viewing deck, feeling every star's twinkle was the tick of a clock that couldn't possibly get to the right time fast enough. She didn't have a deadline, of course... deadlines were for adults. Kids did things in their own time. But she did want to get to Numbuh 1 as soon as possible. The longer the trip took, the more time it gave her to think about everything she was doing wrong, and everything that could go wrong that she couldn't do anything about. There were so many things. So many, many things. Was she doing the right thing by leaving the KND with 86 in command? Should she have brought more operatives, even if she couldn't trust the rest of them like she trusted 86 and V8? What kind of reception would the so-called 'Galactic' KND give her when she barged in, demanding they return Numbuh 1 to his homeworld? What would Numbuh 1 himself say?

Well, that part, at least, she could anticipate and handle just fine. She knew what he'd say. He'd say he loved being a galactic operative jerkwad, and was having the time of his life, nevermind that he'd abandoned his family, his friends, his comrades in the fight against adult tyranny on Earth for a bunch of strangers 'honoring' him with recruitment. What a load. Yeah, he'd say all that, and she'd clock him one and drag his pasty butt back home where he belonged. Because _someone_ had to.

"_Class Q1Z situation imminent, recommending immediate attention of highest-ranking personnel on board!_" the computer announced loudly.

362 winced at the raucous, total-opposite-of-calming sound. Jeez, why did she have to pick the one spaceship in the whole fleet with a Gilbert Gottfried navigational computer voice? Whoever programmed that in was gonna be fired as soon as she got back. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.

"What's a Q1Z, computer?" she asked, rubbing her suddenly throbbing forehead.

"_Unidentified suspicious vessel approaching. Intentions are potentially hostile._"

She frowned, looking all around the limited view that the window afforded her. As far as they knew, adults didn't have widespread space flight capability... yet, anyway. Could they have ran into a patrol from the Galactics already? "Well, what's suspicious about... oh..." she trailed off, seeing the vessel in question.

It was a KND combat ship, definitely one of theirs. But it showed signs of plenty of damage on the hull, most notably a lot of serious burn marks that were indicative of one particular adult's anger. But most telling of all was the huge weapon that had been stapled crudly but sturdily to the ship's front, an obvious new attachment.

It was a wooden spanking paddle.

Looked pretty splintery, too.

"Computer, do we have any weapons on board?" she asked, cursing herself for not asking that obvious and probably essential question earlier. Get your head in the game, 362! She was Supreme Leader, not some random sourball-sucking mook!

"_We are equipped with two sets of hyperspeed spitball cannons, Supreme Leader._"

Crud. That wasn't going to be nearly enough by the looks of it. The ship tailing them was damaged, but only superficially. All the essentials were still intact, and most particularly the various weapon batteries. She could shoot spitballs, but they'd respond with stinky sock bombs and metal-destabilizing cootie clusters. And that wasn't even counting the freaking paddle!

Just as she was wondering what V8 thought about all this, if he even knew, the poor little guy came running in, panicky as she'd never seen him. Of course, V8 wasn't a combat operative. He'd never faced a foe that wasn't tied down before.

"Supreme Leader, that's a friendly ship, right?! Please tell me that's a friendly ship!"

Grimacing, she carefully removed his gloved hands from her shoulders. "You know as well as I do it's a commandeered ship, operative!" she snapped authoritatively. "Now act like you had your sugary cereal this morning and man the spitball cannons!"

At the tone, he went back to his usual self, taking refuge in duty. Good boy. "Yes, _sir_," he said with sudden boldness, snapping off a salute before running off.

She sighed, watching him go. The cannons wouldn't do any good, but _he_ didn't need to know that. At least it would keep him out of her hair while she thought of what to do. What she wouldn't give to have Fanny and her loudmouth fearlessness, or Numbuh 1's sunglassed confidence...

As she felt the first of what would probably be many attacks rock the ship, she frowned. She couldn't be weak. She was Supreme Leader and she was better than everyone under her, that was why she led them, after all. It was time to act like it. An idea formed in her head, desperate but better than nothing.

She jogged to the control room and sent out a message to the attacking ship.

"So, adults, you're reduced to using KND technology now, I see," she said sneeringly, as condescending and dismissive as any grownup could have been. "What's the matter, all your best engineers scratching their butts and watching infomercials?"

The responding voice was one that she had hoped to avoid, but was prepared for anyway. And that was the only reason why she didn't cower when she heard it.

"How DARE you insult the fine men and women of the senior engineers' guild!" Father roared, thoroughly indignant. "I'll have you know they've invented some very fine creations that have advanced the whole of society, like the snowglobe and thermal underwear!"

"I rest my case," she said dryly. "Let it go, Father. We both know if you had any _really_ good tech, you'd be attacking in your own ship. But instead, you had to _steal_ one from the KND, like a loser stealy mcstealerpants!"

"WHY YOU... alright, fine, it's true that we've lagged behind in aeronautical advances," Father cut himself off to go from pure rage to uncharacteristic mild humility, "but that's because we've been so gosh-darned busy tryin' to keep you kids on the Earth from blowing yourselves up! It's a tough job, really it is. Low pay, no respect, never a Hannukah off, and don't even get me started about the dental..."

Another hit made the ship sway, and 362 winced. She had to get to the point quickly before they were blown to bits while she was talking to Father. The man was known to ramble when in the mood.

"I'm sure it is," she allowed, "but you have to admit, it's still pretty pathetic for you to depend on KND tech to take out KND operatives. Why don't you turn off all the weapons _we_ made, and try out that little toy you've got mounted on the front of your hull?"

"Well... that does sound tempting..."

"You know you want to," she teased. "I've been a bad little girl. Why don't you spank me?"

There was a significant pause during which nothing happened at all.

"Okay, that was more than a bit wrong," Father finally said, and 362's cheeks went cherry-red, realizing how it had sounded.

"Fine, whatever, are you gonna man up and try out your new weapon or be a little wussy and keep on nickel and diming us from a distance?!" she blurted, probably unwisely but too flustered to care.

"You know, I almost don't feel like it anymore. I feel dirty now," he complained. "We were having ourselves a good old-fashioned shootout and then you had to _ruin_ it by being all precocious. It's things like this that make merciless pseudo-genocidal war between adults and children awkward, you know!"

"It was just an idle comment! Don't be like that! Do you really want your big paddle thingy to just collect dust when it could be swinging at my ship's butt instead?"

"I mean, I try to be a good evil parent," he went on, as if not even hearing her. "Sure, I yell at kids. Hurt them, for their own good, when I have to. Brainwash them into delightful little obedient minions. Set them on fire, if the situation calls for it and there's no one from the EPA nearby. Bake them into giant cakes sometimes. But everything I have done, I have done for the good of adults and kids everywhere! And I would never, ever abuse my authority as pyromaniacal dictatorial overlord by- HEY, WHAT WAS THAT?!" The connection fizzled into static.

Distantly, 362 heard a whoop from V8 and got a line to him from the computer.

"V8, did you do something just now?"

"I, I think I did, 362!" he said excitedly. "I was just sort of firing wildly, when one shot got all these pointy thingies sticking off the side of their ship! There were lots of explosions and everything, it was really cool! Did you see it?"

Pointy thingies... that could only be part, or maybe even all, of the ship's default weapons armament. Talk about fool's luck!

"If I saw it," she said patiently, "would I be asking you what you did?"

"Oh. I guess not. Eheh. Sorry, Supreme Leader. Uh, I've never been in a real dogfight before so I'm just a little excited..."

"Stay frosty. It's not over yet," she commanded, cutting off the connection to see what Father had to say about this latest turn of affairs.

"Too bad you didn't bring any KND gunners to go along with your KND weapons," she baited him sweetly.

"I suppose my delightful children need a little more training when it comes to shooting moving targets. They're usually used to shooting things I've pinned down with cooled magma. I spoil them, really. However, that just means I'll have to cordially ACCEPT your invitation to make use of my new SPANKOMATIC NINETEEN THOUSAND!"

Watching the ship close in with a flare of firey speed from its engines, 362 gulped. A few spitball projectiles landed on the massive wooden paddle and promptly vanished in tiny puffs, leaving the paddle itself completely unharmed.

Okay, that was one problem out of the way, and one problem remaining.

This was really gonna suck.

The first spank hit the rear ship engines so hard it made all the previous shots seem like nothing at all. Not only did the ship itself shake, but 362's teeth practically rattled in her mouth. She had to clutch frantically at a bolted down chair to keep from falling over.

Then a second one came, and the ship itself seemed to be groaning in agony, metal audibly twisting and buckling.

Then a third.

She opened a channel to V8 again. "V8, do you have any vegetables with you suitable for outer space? I know you were working on some kind of cauliflower spore launcher..."

"Yes, sir, I brought a sample along, but only for testing! It's not really done yet, and I only have just the one..."

"Well, it's all we've got, so you'd better use it! Load it into the cannons and fire at the base of the paddle, where it's attached to the ship!"

"Aye aye, sir!"

A fourth blow came, and she fell over and wanged her head. Groaning, she clutched her skull with one hand and reached up with another to slam a button and close the connection, hoping it would work. She was depending on V8's uniquely vegetative brilliance here. If she'd picked the wrong operative for the mission, they'd both pay for it.

"It think that did it, sir! I think it's working!" V8 cried joyously.

And indeed, as she watched the frame buckling the paddle to the enemy ship began to sway and crack as millions of disgusting, glittery green-white spores coated it and started to eat away at it with the pure power of yuck. Her heart lifted...

And then sank as she saw tubes come out of the ship and suck up all the spores, vacuuming them away slurpingly.

Dang it.

It had _almost_ worked.

"Nice try," Father told her with sickening cheer, "but as you can see, the Spankomatic was not the ONLY tasteful addition I made to this vehicle! And my delightful children just _love_ to eat their vegetables, don't you, little ones?"

"Y-yes, F-father... glurp..." five eerie and queasy-sounding voices replied to him in exact unison. Then there was the distinct sound of five people puking all at once.

"Hey, hey, NOT ON THE CARPET! That's coming out of your allowances, kids! Now where were we... oh, yes. Capturing the Supreme Leader of the KND!"

Another spank, and this one was bad enough that something cracked, the sound thundering throughout the whole ship. The lights flickered and several monitors went alarmingly red.

"_Engines critically damaged!_" the computer's uniquely nasal voice told her.

Sighing, 362 slumped for a moment, then ordered V8 to join her in the command station, and bring all his vegetable weaponry with him. They were gonna go down now, no doubt about it, but they were gonna make it real messy for Father and his pet Siamese freaks. Maybe she'd get to jam a carrot up Father's butt before it was all over, to join the stick that was already there.

Stupid adults.

She and V8 got their backs against the computers, legs locked tensely and weapons aimed for the door, waiting for the enemy to board and stroll on in.

"_Six_ _intruder life forms detected._"

"Thanks, we know that already," she told it.

"_One adult who appears to be running a fever, and five synchronization-adept children._"

"Shut up, computer," she growled absentmindedly.

"_I am afraid I am not programmed to shut up, Supreme Leader,_" the Gilbert Gottfried voice told her serenely, causing 362 to grind her teeth.

Out of a cannon.

Into the freaking SUN.

When Father strode in, tailed by the Delightful Children from Down the Lane, V8 cowered. But 362 stood tall and proud. She fired off a few lettuce incendiaries, which were promptly incinerated into useless black husks by Father's flaming aura.

"You have really gotta teach the rest of us that trick someday," she said with a grin, and flung a diamond-hardened carrot straight at his face.

Father caught the offending projectile in his teeth and crunched it down, making happy sounds. "Mmm, this ish... delishush," he mumbled between carroty bites. "Who's your chef?"

"That would be me," V8 said tremulously, gathering his courage but only just barely. "Would you like... seconds?" His hands went behind his back to select something that looked a bit like relish combined with purple cabbage, to 362's inexpert eyes.

"No thanks, I had a big lunch," Father said amiably, and then flung a couple of fireballs that blew their feet out from under them and left them on their butts, eyes tearing up from all the smoke. "Now that we've got THAT out of the way, how would you two like-"

"_Additional class Q1Z situation imminent, Supreme Leader._"

Father blinked. "Gilbert Gottfried? Really?" He sounded fascinated and horrified at the same time.

362 nodded with a grimace, expecting that Father had brought another ship to help. Just great. Not that it mattered at this point, anyway.

"Now that's just sick," he murmured. "Oh well. Anyway, like I was saying-"

"I think you were saying something about how you were going to surrender, weren't you, Father?" a heart-achingly familiar voice said from further behind the doorway, out in the main corridor.

Father recognized it just as well as 362 did, and turned, hands aflame. "YOU! I've got SUCH a punishment in store for YOU, you little- ARGH!!!"

Father screamed and recoiled upon being hit with a stream of chunky ice cream.

"It's got nuts!" he wailed, trying to brush the stuff off but only spreading it out more. "I _hate_ nuts! It ruins the smooth and delectable texture! Children, GET HIM!"

The Delightfuls were halted in turn by more glurpy ice cream streams.

"Ice cream headache! Ice cream headache!"

"Oh, come on, there's only one... two... five... thirty-seven of them," Father amended himself repeatedly, staring out into the hallway with an increasingly twitchy posture.

"Baskin Robbins special, at your service," that familiar voice said. It was followed by the sound of a weapon being pumped, super soaker style.

"This is a bit much on the culinary end for my tastes," Father said primly. "A man's gotta watch his figure at my age. I think I'll come back when I'm feeling hungrier. Children, do you remember that button I told you never to press?"

"Yes, Father," the five Delightfuls replied.

"Press it."

They did, and screamed as they were sent rocketing straight through the ceiling in a sudden boost of jet force from their boots, leaving a large hole behind. Father chuckled.

"It's a father's prerogative to play little jokes on his children sometimes," he told them goodnaturedly. "Shows them how much you love them. I'll be back to settle things when it's less crowded in my tummy, kids!" With a fwoosh of smoke and fire, he simply vanished.

"I wonder when he learned how to teleport," V8 mused.

"Father's good at coming up with new tricks to surprise innocent kids with," came that voice again.

362 wanted to move forward, wanted to say something, but after all her planning, after all her hopes and expectations and fears and worries, to have it all happen like this was just beyond humiliating. She couldn't bring herself to do anything but stand there, seething at herself and hating the world.

Numbuh 1 stepped into view wearing a space combat suit, holding a high-tech ice cream gun, and minus his sunglasses. "362. It's good to see you again." He smiled a smile that made 362 want to hug him and hit him simultaneously. "And, uh, you too, whoever you are," he added in V8's direction. "So what brings you guys all the way out here?"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Caught between conflicting urges of wanting to hug him, hit him, or just hide somewhere, 362 settled on giving the balding defector a handshake.

"You're AWOL, Numbuh 1."

He wasn't at all discomforted. "Am I? I'm still serving proudly in the KND, fighting the good fight against adults all over the galaxy.

"Don't play coy with me. I'm glad that you're still fighting adults, but we need you back on Earth, not out here in space. You should have at least asked for permission."

He looked bewildered, which was always a cute expression on him, rare as it was. "Well, uh, look... I'm a little surprised that you care-"

"I don't!" she snapped defensively. "You broke the rules, Nigel! That's all this is about!" Too late, she realized she'd used his real name and groaned inwardly. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Way to keep it professional, idiot.

"Of course," he said soothingly, back to smooth and suave. "It's just that you didn't seem to ocnsider me a priority operative when we last talked." There was a little acid in there, and it was probably warranted, 362 admitted to herself with a little shame. She had been kind of a jerk to him, over that last cake mission thing... but she'd never expected he would do something so irresponsible as run off somewhere where she couldn't yell at him! That was totally unfair! _She'd_ been the mad one, _she_ should have stopped talking to _him_, not the other way around! "But maybe this is a conversation we should have in different circumstances," he added diplomatically. The countless Galactic KND operatives in battle-ready formation behind him were suddenly very apparent, in all their multi-specied weird alien glory. There were more skin tones and sets of eyes than 362 had ever seen on Earth, that was for sure. "Tell you what, we'll get your ship in to the local GKND station, and while it's being repaired, I can take you and your subordinate on a tour and we can talk things over."

"His name's V8. He's one of our top scientists, specialty's veggie-biowarfare," she explained carefully before V8 had time to get any hurt feelings over being referred to so dismissively.

"Hm? Oh, how interesting," Numbuh One said in a way that meant it wasn't interested at all. Her gaze went frosty. Was a top agent from the regular old Earth KND _boring_ now that he had his stupid Galactic command post? "Well, let's get you aboard my ship and I can introduce you to the big guns on my team while we tow your ship to dock."

Another insult, implying that her ship couldn't hold together long enough to fly to dock on its own! Or maybe she was just being overly sensitive? It was kind of a stressful situation. V8 looked offended, the way his eyebrows were scrambling all over his forehead, but V8 was fussy. She didn't know what to think anymore. She was so tired.

She nodded her assent, too tired to argue over trivial things, following Numbuh One and dozens of clopping, slithering, high-stepping, hopping, and bouncing alien operatives to the GKND ship. It turned out to be a pretty weird ship, to suit the weird operatives: having been built to accomodate a huge range of kid species, its interior environment was organized into stripes like a rainbow, each stripe conveniently molded to fit the preferences of a particular type of kind. The floors were hard, soft, gooey, chalky, spiderwebby, prickly. The furniture was... well, most of it reminded her of one of those really dumb adult art galleries about abstract things, which was just a fancy way of saying the art was about nothing but sold for a lot anyway because someone famous had made it. The lighting also ran a full range from pure darkness to brilliantly white light and everything in between, each stripe separated by its own little veil. Even the temperatures for each stripe was different! Totally creeped out by it all, she and V8 followed behind Numbuh One closely as they crossed the stripes until they got to one that seemed like it was made for humans. At least, there was grass that was _almost_ green, and chairs that were _almost_ comfortable, and a drink dispenser that gave them something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike soda. She listened carefully as Numbuh One called out his orders for the ship, similar but subtlety different in form from regular KND order-giving in how it was all worded.

None of it was bad, necessarily.

Just... different.

Even Numbuh One seemed different. He'd never been comfortable being in charge of a large number of kids at once, which was one reason why she had never promoted him to a better rank. He'd always been best as a small team member, and even then he'd gone off on his own a ton of the time. But here and now, he was at ease. He told a huge ship full of kids completely unlike him what they should be doing, and they obeyed him. And he _delegated_, too! That was just plain freaky, to hear him telling other people to do stuff he normally would have wanted to do himself, like preparing tactical plans for Father's next attack.

Then Numbuh One started doing the introductions, such as they were. They consisted of him pointing and describing an operative he considered semi-important. The operatives were all busy doing... alien kid operative things. Numbuh One seemed to understand what was going on a lot better than she did.

"The one on the light purple stripe's KlKLkleEEp," he said, putting his tongue through some painful-sounding clicky, squealy gymnastics that 362 never wanted to hear again. "She's an unnameable cosmic horror from beyond time and space."

"Really," 362 said blankly, staring at the vague, quivering blob. It looked like green Jello lit under a blacklight.

"Yep! Since she's still a kid, though, she only sends other species who see her into temporary insanity once every fifty-two and a half minutes. It's a defensive reflex kind of thing. We just have to remember to blink at the right time. The adults... only other cosmic horrors can fight them unless you want to try and fight blind, but we've got scientists working on field combat-able sonar. Just one of many problems the GKND is dealing with. Anyway, she's a spaceship gunner, secondary navigator in her spare time. She can shoot a acidic booger right into the oppressibelum section of an adult brain before they know what hit 'em."

And that was how it went. Impossible to pronounce name, weird alien biology synopsis, mission specialty and skills. The skillsets were ones she was familiar with and could cope with, and that was about all she could cope with in the descriptions, so she tried to focus on those and ignore the kids with five nostrils each designed for a specific smell, the kids with acid-spraying armpits, the kids with slime and gas spores, and especially that one kid who just happened to be of a species that looked exactly like a badger with its head on upside down. Badgers had always creeped her out. Numbuh One seemed completely at home with it, and what did she expect, anyway? He'd been living and working with this kind of stuff for plenty of time now, accomplishing great things for the GKND probably, while she'd sulked and brooded away in command of a (suddenly insignificant-seeming) planetary KND force that couldn't even keep Earth safe for kids.

362 noted with depressed interest that he didn't get into any remotely personal details with the operatives, like their hobbies or personalities or anything like that. It sounded like he was reciting their files lifted from a computer database more than anything else. It sounded like he wasn't close to any of them as he had been with his old team and Lizzie on Earth, and weirdly, that didn't seem to bother him any.

She'd come to get Numbuh One back, but was the Numbuh One she'd known back on Earth even here to get back on the first place? And anyway, who was she to question how he lived his life, when her social life was just as eaten up by her own rank in the KND if not more so? Was she just upset that he had turned out to be more like her than she'd ever wanted him to be? The thoughts made a lump raise up in her throat, and she swallowed it.

Then they got on to the matter of where Numbuh One belonged. She couldn't convince him of anything, but she hadn't expected to, so that was fine. Since she couldn't just clock him over the head and drag him back like she'd hoped, she'd just have to go over his head in a different kind of way.

"It doesn't sound like anyone from a planetary KND's ever had this kind of beef with the GKND before, am I right?" she asked him pointedly when they got into complicated rules and regulations that Numbuh One thankfully seemed less comfortable with.

"Err... well, I don't know much of the history, but I don't think there's any preceding... precedent... or anything..." he stammered uncertainly.

She bent closer with a grin that must have made him more nervous, because he leaned back exactly as much as she leaned forward. "Well, then, we can't just leave important stuff like operative transferral permissions to whatever! We need to take this to someone in authority to make a judgement call. Where's the nearest Grand Brat?"

"You know about the Grand Brats?" And for that tiny instant she got to be smug. She got to surprise him that she actually knew a little about the GKND. It was sweet. Squeezing Infinity for info like an overripe orange had been totally worth it. Then, all too soon, he was back to his old self-assurance. "Impressive, but I guess that's why you're the Supreme Leader of Earth's KND. Well, there's one about two hypernaps away on Asteroid The Biggest Asteroid In This Solar System-"

"What?" V8 interrupted with understandable confusion.

"The kids who named it weren't real creative, okay? Like I was saying, that's where the nearest Grand Brat is. We can get there without any stops once we refuel at the station, but I wouldn't care to place any bets on Father not causing us a few delays."

"We can handle him," 362 said grimly, various ideas for manipulating the new and interestingly dangerous technology at her sort of disposal already forming in her mind. It was a little presumptuous but she was used to being in charge, and she was _good_ at it, too. Oh, how sweet it would be to take some of this stuff back to Earth. The cootie disintegration ray alone would be priceless.

"_We_ can handle him," Numbuh One countered with careful emphasis. "You and V7-"

"V8!" V8 objected.

"-and V8 aren't taking any risks on my watch. How would it look if I lost a Supreme Commander? I'd lose candy privileges till I became an adult! You guys are guests of the GKND, here to solve a dispute of galactic versus planetary authority. This could make the history books. Not that most of them use books up here... it's mostly a bunch of glowing crystals and stuff, you know. But until all that's solved, I'm not letting you put yourselves in harm's way. And once it is solved, I'll see to it that you have the finest escort available to take you back home."

So that was how it was going to be, then. The Numbuh One she remembered had gone away, and in his place was this weird, _responsible_ kid with lots of subordinates but no friends and no sunglasses.

362 still had Numbuh Infinity's sunglasses. She'd packed them in with her stuff by accident, having forgotten to give them back in the rush. She wondered if Numbuh One would seem like less of a stranger to her if she put them on his face.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"And here's the lab. Mostly focused on the new research for vacuum-resistant extra-large duct tape to quarantine planets hopelessly infected with adulthood, from what I understand," One explained as he unnecessarily pointed out the unmissably huge, high-ceilinged room filled with more beepy boopy flashy devices than a Trekkie could shake a stick at.

"Sounds interesting. I believe I'll see if I can presuade their scientists to let me browse some of their notes," V8 mumbled, shouldering past One to slide right in to the middle of the pack of white-coated alien dorks. It was uncanny how V8 immediately seemed right at home and how everyone else seemed to feel that way about him too; 362 supposed that science geeks were a kind of species of their own and recognized kindred spirits.

"Glad _he's_ gone. Man, what a stick in the mud."

Her shoulder stiffened at One's easy condescension. She wasn't going to let this deserter pick on any of her loyal operatives! "He's great at his job and hasn't failed a single mission I've given him so far," she replied icily. "Which is more than I can say for you, Mister I Never Get The Cake."

"Oh come onnnn, why can't you just let that go?" he whined. It wasn't the first time she'd taken the opportunity to bring that subject up with him since they'd reunited in the depths of space. Mostly because it was pretty much the only edge she had on him besides the desertion thing, which would have to wait till it had a Grand Brat listening to matter now. "I mean, it's not like I didn't do my best every time!"

"Your best wasn't good enough. Every time."

"I succeeded when it counted. They were just stupid cakes!"

"They were symbols," she said quietly as they continued to walk through crowds of bizarre aliens. She almost slipped in some sludge left behind by a purple Jello-y creature with a pink bow on its... well, sort of head... but One caught her hand at the last moment and steadied her. Which for some reason made her angry. "They were symbols," she repeated, louder. "Symbols for hope and symbols for despair. Like your sunglasses. Which you gave away." She stared into his eyes meaningfully but he looked back without a blink.

"My time on Earth's done. My team can stand on its own without me, that's why I gave Numbuh Five my shades. Lizzie didn't need me. My parents were proud to see me go. _You_ certainly didn't seem to need me as an operative anymore, so..."

"I wasn't treating you nice enough, so you just jump ship?" she snapped. "That's just like you. You've always thought you were better than all the other kids. That you were special and different. Maybe if you'd treated me with a little more respect, like a _real_ operative would've, then I wouldn't have yelled at you so much!"

"I _am_ special and different," he told her calmly. "That's why I'm here. I followed your orders when I thought it was best for the kids of Earth, and I disobeyed you or gave you advice when it seemed like it was better for everyone for me to do so. Sure, I'm not perfect, but go on, tell me I'm not the best operative you've ever had under your command. I double dog dare you."

She hated him all the more for not being able to say it.

No, wait, that was wrong. She shouldn't care so much. It wasn't personal. This was just a mission that was officially not a mission that was being done for the good of kids everywhere, so the policies on desertion could be sorted out for future cocky kids with dreams of running off into the Milky Way or wherever. This was Supreme Leader business. She had no reason to be getting angry. Even though the kids who acknowledged her as Supreme Leader were so far away and not doing anything for her, while Numbuh One was right here making her pissed.

Sitting down in what was probably some kind of chair in an open air restaurant, she eyed a bunch of different plates and wondered vaguely why half the food still looked alive. It was still better than looking at One's exposed eyes, that constantly reminded her that Things Were Different. "So what, you want special status, is that it?" She was quiet again, feeling sad and not knowing what she had to be sad over. "Fine. You win. You _are_ the best. Problem is, you know that and rely on it more than you should. Should I have just told everyone to treat you like a superhero celebrity or something and never question your decisions? What then, on the times you _did_ fail and needed some help? And what about when you grow up, One? Someone has to take your place. Someone has to be as good as you, if not better."

"I'm never going to grow up," he said with such intense seriousness that for a moment she almost believed him.

"We all grow up, Nigel," she said softly, sadly.

He took a seat next to her with a casual poise that was almost as infuriating as it was charming. "Not me. Look, the GKND scientists... they've been working on ways to halt the conversion to teenagerhood and adulthood. We can stop the enemy's recruitment plan in its tracks... maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday! And I swear I'll be there to see it, and I'll be the first volunteer when they start taking 'em."

She couldn't believe it. Couldn't even grasp the idea. It was a hope too drastic and terribly wonderful to ever let herself dream of. 362 frowned and shook her head, not even allowing the slightest shred of doubt to enter her mind for a moment.

"Well, good luck on that, but I'll stick to thinking about what's here and now and not all the what might bes the science nerds dream up." She hesitated, then took a breath and asked a question that had been bobbing in and out of her head for a long time now. "Hey, what made you change your mind about wanting Lizzie around? You know, at the last moment and all."

He blinked at the change in subject, but shrugged it off. "Uuhhh... well. It's kind of. You know. I just realized all the times she'd been there for me and wanted me with her and I'd blown her off, and... it was nice being needed, I guess." Hmph. Typical. He liked someone clinging on his arm, that was all! But when someone was strong and independent, he decided _their_ opinion on things didn't matter and ran off to join other organizations! Not that being his Supreme Leader was anything like being his girlfriend. Totally different, really. She didn't know why she'd even bothered to wonder about it. Curiosity, that was all. Just curiosity. "She needed me, I just figured it out too late. And now, the GKND needs me. They need me more than you can imagine. I could tell you such crazy stories... adulthood is on the verge of annihilating all childrendom, and it's a miracle we wake up every day to pull the cheese off pizza and skateboard down escalators."

"So tell me, then. Maybe I can't do much, with my hands tied fighting Father and all, but I'd at least like to know. How much worse are adults in the rest of the galaxy? Anyone nastier than Father out there?"

"Well... just for example, there's a lot of highly advanced adult weaponry that we've never seen on Earth. Mostly because Father tends to blow up scientists who ask for too much funding, I think. And you have no idea how lucky you are not to have seen some of these things in action. It gets really awful. Bubblegum that blows _you_. Robo-Boogiemen who can teleport into any closet, anywhere. And even worse butt-targeting tech than that paddle Father slapped on the ship he stole. Like the douche." He shuddered as he said it, as though the word itself called up a ton of bad memories for him. "I can't even think about it anymore. It's just too horrible."

"Well?" she demanded, a little annoyed. "You can't say all that and leave me in suspense. What does this douche thing do?"

He leaned closer, looked around for a second, then whispered in her ear.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW!" she squealed, making everyone nearby stare at her.

-----

After trying and failing to get access to anything scientifically fun or interesting (either they were real tight on security here, or his charming skills needed some work), V8 decided to see if he could catch up with 362. Whether One was there or not totally didn't matter, although he really hoped for not. It was annoying talking to someone who couldn't remember your name. And it wasn't like his name was that hard to remember! It was the same as that nasty red drink adults had invented to induce puking in kids! He'd wanted to be Q8 since his middle name was Quinn, but nooooooo.

He was a little upset to them talking at a restaurant table like they were old pals.

More than a little upset, really.

She wasn't acting like a Supreme Leader around him, she was acting like a... like a _girl_! And _he_ wasn't acting like a subordinate operative, either, he was totally in... in... what was that shoe word adults used? Insolent, that was it. One was being really insolent to her and she seemed to let him, even though she got mad over it. He didn't understand it at all. This was really inappropriate. V8 hadn't been dragged halfway across the universe or however far it'd been, in secrecy from his fellow kids, to set the Supreme Leader up on a lunch date! There was important, serious business to do! Lots and lots of work! In fact, he was three minutes behind schedule just watching them, one hand clamped over his agitated eyebrows to keep from being noticed in the crowd.

Well, hmph, whatever. He'd thought 362 was better than that. Maybe she was and he was just misunderstanding things. But it didn't matter. He still had work to do, and he'd be doing it no matter what everyone else was busy doing. He was no slacker, he worked tirelessly for the cause of youth everywhere! So thinking, he instinctively straightened his collar, ran a hand through his hair to make sure it was neat, and smoothed down his pants before heading back to the room in the station he'd set up his portable lab in. Just because he was travelling didn't mean he was gonna stop finding new ways to gross out people with veggie weaponry, after all. And there were so many new vegetables here to try out, too! The possibilities for new and more effective varieties of grossing out were almost infinite.

Heh, almost infinite.

He almost wished Infinity were here to appreciate that choice of phrase, but his former captives tended to stay far, far away from him.

No matter.

A _real_ kid didn't _need_ friends! The glorious cause of childhood was enough company for anyone!

Almost to his room, he bumped into a small group of aliens, each one a different bright color, almost as if they'd been painted that way. Red, yellow, blue, green, orange.

"Sorry," he apologized, and made to hurry on, but they shifted in front of him.

"No, it is we who are sorry," they replied all at once. Weird. Well, who was he to judge colorful alien life forms? "Are you Number V8?"

"Numbuh," he corrected fussily.

"Whatever. You're him, right?"

"Yeah..." He looked them up and down, their five smiles just a little too smiley. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Oh, no," they replied, shaking their heads and holding up their hands all at once, which was apparently the way they did everything. "You see, you've just been such a _good_ operative that we've heard about you all the way up here! And we heard those dor-, we mean, our fellow scientists were a little mean to you today. So we thought we'd make it up to you and give you a little present. It's an experiment we've been working on for a long time now. We thought you'd like it."

Feeling fuzzily warm inside, V8 took the offered box. Medium size, medium weight. It could have anything in it. And it was a gift, from the GKND! They liked him, they really liked him! He knew all that hard work would pay off after all! At long last, the respect of his peers. A strange feeling tugged at his mouth, and he took almost ten seconds to realize it was a grin.

"I'm, I'm flattered," he stuttered out. "Really, this is very nice of you... what kind of experiment is it? Does it have anything to do with radishes?" he asked hopefully.

"Nuh uh uhhhhhhhh," they said conspiratorially, smiling and shaking their heads. "It's a surprise. You can experiment with it aaaaall you like once you see what's inside, but you have to open it to find out what it is! We'll leave you to it, Number V8." They winked at him. "Say hi to 362 for us!"

"But I don't know your... um... names..." he said to thin air. They sure had taken off in a hurry. Almost like they didn't want to stick around. He didn't smell, did he? Worried, he sniffed himself, then relaxed. Good old bleach and extra strong mint-scented bodywash, just like always. Oh well. They probably just had places to be. Humming to himself cheerfully, he went to his room and started to open his present.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Grumbling, 362 searched through her luggage for the nth time. And came up, just as she had the first kajillion times, totally hairbrushless.

This was stupid. She needed to look her best for the Grand Brat, the second highest rank in the GKND, but how was she supposed to do that if she couldn't brush her hair?! V8 only had a tiny little comb, that wouldn't work on a girl's hair at all.

Desperate, she was forced to go to her last resort to ask for help.

"Numbuh One, do you happen to know where there's a hairbrush I can borrow? I lost mine."

She couldn't blame him for looking confused, given his... condition. "Uh, well, I'm not really the one to ask, but maybe one of the officers... let me ask a few people and see what I can come up with."

The wait was full of trepidation, but when it was over she almost wished for it back. What One ended up coming up with... the closest possible thing to a human hairbrush... was a sticky-feeling spoon with a bunch of wiggling blue tentacles on the end. Since he had spent like half an hour trying to find the thing, she smiled and thanked him politely and took it back to her quarters, where she glared at the tool in pure revulsion.

Okay. Truth time. How desperate was she to look good in front of aliens who probably didn't know the difference between a pretty human girl and a messy human girl?

After a moment's hesitation, she started brushing with slow, paranoid care, staring at the mirror in case any of the tentacles tried anything funny.

To her relief, it actually seemed to work out okay. The tentacles did their own thing, and put her hair into something that wasn't totally her usual style, but it was still way better than bedhead. And they seemed like they were gelling her hair at the same time, too! With what, she probably didn't want to think about too hard.

They'd arrived at Asteroid The Biggest Asteroid In This Solar System just a few hours ago, and were lucky enough to be able to see the Grand Brat today, if they hurried to fit the schedule. They'd had just enough time to freshen up while the Grand Brat was busy mediating a bitter disagreement between two species sharing the same planet over whether or not nighttime stealth operatives should be allowed to wear glow in the dark bandaids.

She acted like she knew everything, which was easy. She'd been doing it for ages as Supreme Leader. But in reality, 362 was nervous as heck. V8 had squeezed some of the basic GKND ranking info from Infinity, and some minor location and mapping stuff, but that was it. She had no idea what the Grand Brats were like, what they expected from subordinates, whether they even considered planetary Supreme Leaders to be subordinates in the first place... pretty much everything she needed to know, she didn't. But she couldn't let anyone figure that out or she'd look like a stupid girl charging into a situation blind. Which she was, but so long as she could convince them that she wasn't, then it would all turn out okay.

Maybe she should have taken a different strategy. Revealed her intentions to the KND openly, gotten some recon on the GKND before trying to get One back. Played it safe, kept a distance. That was how she did most things. It was her routine and she was comfy with it. But the idea of leaving One playing lone wolf hero for that much more time really pissed her off, and she couldn't help but imagine the look on everyone's faces when she returned from her 'vacation' with the KND's best operative since Zero in tow. And for some reason, it was also important that she rubbed it in One's face, too. That she personally _made_ him come back. It would be a great... a great... _symbol_. After that, no one would think of running off without her approval again, and One would be a lot more humble to boot!

She just had to keep her cards close to her chest in the meantime, and adapt quickly. She could do this. She'd eaten through a wall of broccoli to take back the rank of Supreme Leader from Father. Now she was dealing with allies, with fellow kids, and the only veggies around were on _her_ side! This would be super easy by comparison.

That was what she kept telling herself as she walked into the big, big chamber, filled with lights that didn't seem to light up anything, ringed by all kinds of alien children who apparently had nothing better to do than watch the Grand Brat's business unfold.

It didn't help that the kid standing right smack dab in the middle of the room, in front of a huge fat Buddha-like statue, was another one of those unnameable horror things. Incongruously wrapped up in a big fluffy purple robe, it was mostly tentacles, and sparkled in colors that 362 didn't have names for. Every few minutes a little sign blinked from the ceiling in dozens of languages, including English:

**BLINK PLEASE**

The first time, she hadn't blinked and had spent about two and a half humiliating and horrible minutes thinking she was being eaten alive by zombie badgers. After that wore off, she got the hang of it and remembered to blink like everyone else did to avoid the aura o' crazy the species radiated at regular intervals.

She didn't get hassled for it too much, though, to her immense gratitude.

"_Don't worry about it,_" One whispered in her ear. "_Everyone messes that up at first. You get used to it._"

"So, this is the Supreme Leader of Earth, is it?" the horror asked in a voice like a swarm of bees given the ability to sing opera. Some of the glittery bits moved up and down as if they were looking at her, and she tried to stand straight and tall. "You've come a long way to speak with us here at the GKND layer two sub-sub-base. We hear that you have an issue with our recruiting policy?"

"You're darn right I do," she said firmly. This was her big moment. "You don't think it's a little inefficient, not to mention dishonest, to rely on shadow organizations within planetary KNDs to poof away top operatives without the knowledge or consent of the highest-ranking kids? Mission plans have to be changed, teams reorganized, all on the fly. That's not even getting into the danger to the remaining operatives that this communication barrier causes! What if I'd assumed One had been kidnapped by Father, and sent kids to rescue him, putting them at risk of being baked into a cake or delightfulized for no reason? Frankly, it seems like a really irresponsible way to run things, to me!"

Okay, maybe that last bit was a little too hostile. She had to keep it frosty. It was impossible to read the Grand Brat's expression, if horrors even _had_ expressions, so she had to be just as unreadable. Dignity. Poise. All that junk. She was Supreme Leader, and she was annoyed at the slight to her authority, but this wasn't personal. Not personal at all.

One had objections. "Oh, come on," he said incredulously. "You can't hold the entire GKND responsible for how one shadow organization set things up. Different KNDs work in different ways. You're talking to the wrong people, why don't you find Numbuh Infinity and yell at _him_ some?"

"It is true that the GKND deliberately distances itself from the matters of planetary KNDs," the horror said, one tentacle curling upwards. "This is why the shadow organizations, the KNDs within the KNDs, exist in the first place. We trust them to exercise their best judgement on these matters."

She hadn't expected the GKND to operate with such a loose grip, but she thought fast on her feet and came up with a comeback without any trouble. She stared where she hoped the Grand Brat's eyes were. "As long as the GKND presents itself as a superior or more important organization than the smaller planetary KNDs, the shadow organizations will feel free to do whatever they want for the supposed good of the GKND and shrug off all objections! If Supreme Leaders are gonna have any authority at all, they can't be ignored at will by operatives who think they're doing it for some greater good! All kids in the galaxy need to stand together on this one, if we're to have a chance of beating the adults."

The horror shimmered and buzzed. "I can't entirely disagree with your points, Supreme Leader of Earth. Nevertheless, we have depended on Numbuh One for some time now and have our own priorities and uses for him. It would be difficult for us to place him back on Earth at this point, especially since he doesn't want to go. A complicated issue. Perhaps we should take this to a higher authority."

362 ground her teeth in frustration. She'd been afraid of this. An organization this big was bound to have some red tape that needed cutting through. "With all due respect, Grand Brat, we don't have time for-"

"_That's not the Grand Brat,_" One whispered urgently to her.

She blinked. "_It's not? Then... who..._"

The horror stepped to one side, and the great big pot-bellied thing she'd thought was a statue took a couple ground-quaking steps forward and into clear sight. A blotched skin like a blue sky with rainclouds in it covered a body so disproportionately fat and stubby that it was a miracle it could move at all. The head was squashed into roughly watermelon shape, with three pairs of tiny ears the size of human fists sticking out on either side. There was a bellybutton the size of a crater. A loincloth with crude smiley faces drawn all over it in what seemed like a really big crayon. Five eyes, all in a straight line, no two of the same size, a flat nose, and a mouth that grinned to display shiny green teeth bigger than 362's whole body.

But despite all the differences, it was, very clearly... a great big baby.

"NO TAKE BAWDY!" it said with a voice that was sure to echo around in 362's head when she was trying to get to sleep tonight. "NEED BAWDY TO FIGHT ADUWT TYWANNY! WE NO TAKE MOWE OPEWATIVES WITHOUT YOO PEWMISHUN, BUT YOO NO TAKE BAWDY!"

It took her a second to translate in her head and figure out bawdy meant 'baldy.' She snickered.

"_Is that like your codename up here, One?_" she whispered behind a hand. "_They respect you up here way more than I do, obviously..._"

He glared at her. "_The Grand Brat calls people whatever he wants! At least I don't have to spend hours brushing my hair!_"

"I'm sorry, Grand Brat, but I won't bend on this one. You have a huge pool to draw your operatives from, but Earth is all I've got! Numbuh One is a vital symbol of our cause! I _have_ to get him back on Earth! Now, maybe later, after everyone's clear on the chain of command, I could consent to give him up to you on a temporary basis... a week or two a month, or something..."

362 knew she'd pushed too hard as soon as the words were out of her mouth, because the crowd started getting involved for the first time. She found herself assaulted by alien insults and thrown projectiles that bounced like Nerf footballs. Rather than lose dignity and dodge it all, she stood there and took it, unflinching and grim. Kids were kids, no matter what planet they were from. They would be childish, that was kind of their job in life. She was through with taking that sort of stuff to heart.

"WE GIVE YOO GENEWOUS OFFAH!" the Grand Brat said angrily, a little greenish bile leaking from the corner of its pouty mouth. "YOU TAKE OFFAH AN' WEAVE, OW YOO NO GET ANYFING!"

Her heart pounded in her chest. This was an important moment, she knew. Maybe the biggest of her whole career as Supreme Leader. But she knew what she was going to say before she said it, even if she wasn't sure if it was the right thing to say or not. She was glad that V8 wasn't here to disapprove and twitch his freaky eyebrows.

"How about door number three," she said with a smooth cordiality that contrasted the Grand Brat's anger in a way that seemed to soothe the crowd. "Leaving Numbuh One with you is a huge insult to Earth's KND and to myself as a Supreme Leader, and I won't stand for it. Either you give him back, with your official statement that you won't take any more of Earth's operatives without Supreme Leader approval... or I don't go back to Earth at all. And you'll get to explain why I'm not at my post to my second in command, Numbuh 86. You think you've got an annoying political incident on your hands _now_? Wait till 86 hears what's going on. She'll make Father's tantrums look like sprinkles of rain by comparison. She's in charge of decomissioning operatives, for one thing, and don't think for one second that she's shy about it."

A dead hush filled the air, and the aliens around burst into excited babble at her gamble. It was reckless, it was probably asking for more than she could get it, it was... entirely possible that it could work, if only because if the GKND made an outright enemy of Earth's KND, then it would be really easier for other KNDs to follow suit and form an opposing alliance. At least, that was what she was hoping on the GKND being scared of. If she'd guessed at their alien psychology wrong, she'd just thrown it all away for nothing.

"OWDAH! OWDAH!" the Grand Brat thundered. When no one quieted down, he let out the hugest, smelliest fart 362 had ever had the misfortune to witness. Everyone collapsed to the floor, groaning or doing the alien equivalent of it, clutching their noses and coughing. "DAT ISH BETTAH."

"What the... uck... heck are you doing, Rachel?" One hissed at her through the fumes. "You could've gotten what you wanted but you threw it all away for me! One stinking operative! Even _I_ know I'm not THAT good!"

"I refuse to compromise," was all she could tell him, her throat tight and her words coming out like little bullets. Her eyes were watering and that was probably just the fart gas. "To heck with the stupid shadow organization, and to heck with you, and to heck with the GKND and their stupid baby leaders. Your place is with us, Nigel. Earth is your home!"

"I have a new home now," he told her grimly. She didn't like the look in his eyes. It was almost pitying, and she saw no reason for that, not when she was trying so hard to be strong.

"YOO SIWWEE SUPWEME WEADAH," the Grand Brat told her, scratching its enormous butt, then sniffing the pudgy finger. "SIWWEE SIWEE SIWWEE! YOO WANNA STAY HEEYAH FOWEVAH, DAT YOO OWN CHOISH. YOO STAY TIWW YOO GET TIYAD, DEN YOO GO BACK HOME."

"The Grand Brat has given his judgment," the horror announced with a voice that, although previously intimidating, now sounded incredibly small next to the Brat's sheer volume. "This session is totally over."

"But-" 362 started to say, desperate to think of some other way to get a grip on the situation. She didn't really want things to escalate into all out hostilities any more than the GKND hopefully did... but she knew 86 and she knew 86's temper. And they'd gotten close enough to be something like friends. Oh, yes, this could get bad.

The horror was not to be argued with. "Totally. Over. Now shoo, we've got a meeting about drilling dunce caps for the 'special' operatives coming up."

362 stalked out, fury temporarily overcoming dismay, and Numbuh One half-jogged to keep up with her angrily-quick steps.

"I can't _believe_ you did that!" he burst out as soon as they were out of the room.

"I can't believe he _shooed_ me," she growled, glaring at One with a fire that made him flinch. She felt like sinking her teeth into someone's throat. "Earth is a big planet with a lot of things going on! We're more important than some dumb new 2x4 hat tech idea!"

"Actually, they use 2x13.2 tech around here..." he corrected her hesitantly. "But honestly, Rachel-"

"Don't call me that! I'm your Supreme Leader. If you can't call me by that, at least use my numbuh like a real operative."

"No, I won't," he insisted unexpectedly. He grabbed her shoulders and made her look at him instead of letting her continue her angry stalking. "Rachel, tell me why you did what you just did back there! I wanna know, kid to kid, why you felt like it was a good idea to throw away everything you said you were trying to work for by insisting that you get one particular kid back! Why do you care about me this much?!"

"I don't!" she yelled right in his face, and then stood tense and silent, unable to think of anything else to say through the red haze of anger eating up her brain. This had to be what Father felt like when he was throwing fireballs. She just wanted to see everything burn. Stupid One, and One's stupid fancy big new team, and the horror who'd made her mess up and mistake it for the Grand Brat in front of everyone, and that stupid, _stupid_ baby One was taking orders from!

In the end, she just turned and walked off, not having a clue where she was going and not really caring. And she couldn't figure out if it was good or bad that One didn't call out to her when she did it.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Another morning of checking in on the Supreme Leader. Another morning of getting yelled at and the door shut in his face. And it wasn't like _he_, V8, had done anything wrong!

This was totally unprofessional. The whole thing was just a mess. Months and months he'd worked with her nicely, and now she was sulking in her room and wouldn't come out and just got hissy whenever he tried to persuade or force her to come out and deal with the world.

He wasn't trained for this kind of stuff. He was an expert on vegetables, not people. And even if some of the alien kids on this asteroid technically _were_ plants, they didn't really count as ones in his book. Not when they refused to be used as interrogation devices.

Why had she even bothered to bring him in the first place? It wasn't like he'd done any good. The doubts swirled in his mind, merging into bigger and bigger ones, as day after day passed. He started entertaining thoughts he'd never let himself think before, never had _reason_ to think before. Thoughts like...

Maybe she's not a good Supreme Leader after all.

Maybe she's over the hill. Burning out?

Early retirement's been done before... perhaps a new Leader would be best for everyone, at this point.

She could be letting her emotions make her decisions for her.

She could be forgetting about the war to focus on... on what? Numbuh One, that was what.

Why would she focus on Numbuh One?

Could she have a... THING... for him?  
Teenagers did horrible, horrible crimes against kids because of... THINGS.

THINGS were traps sealed with chocolate and cutesy little cards and cheap jewelry, and if she had a THING then she was obviously closer to a teenager than an adult... and how could someone like that be a good Supreme Leader?

She might even betray them for the THING... if the adults could convince her, and there was no other way for her to get her THING satisfied.

It seemed unthinkable, impossible. But teenagers with THINGS did unthinkable, impossible stuff all the time. The THING _made_ them do it, they would say afterwards, they would _never_ do it ordinarily, but they had this THING for a guy or a girl, and so they had to....

Numbuh V8 was a scientist. He hated to jump to conclusions. Maybe there was still time, still hope. No reason to be paranoid. Just... careful. He would talk to her, have a real chat, kid to kid. Maybe even tell her his name, just so she'd feel like she could trust him a little more. They could sort it all out and maybe get another meeting with the Grand Brat, and salvage the mission for the good of the KND. The mission came first. Always. Yes, he'd do that.

...right after he checked in on the present those strange colorful aliens had given him.

It was a timed puzzle, he'd figured out. A kind of game, really. You had to figure out how to open it up, layer by layer, piece by piece, and open each part up at just the right time, not too fast or too slow. It involved a lot of failures to figure out which times were right and wrong for each bit, and one failure meant going back to start, so it took a while. He was about two-thirds done, he figured. What was inside? Who knew. That was the fun part, wondering. It was really super addictive.

He kind of hoped it was a puppy.

V8 told himself sternly that he'd only put an hour or two into it. But that turned into an extra half hour more... then another hour or two... and before he knew it, he'd missed lunch and supper and everyone was going to bed. When he forced himself to look up from the puzzle and walk out, he staggered drunkenly for half a minute before realizing his eyes had somehow crossed themselves during the whole thing, and uncrossed them. Knocking on the Supreme Leader's door got no response, so he just barged on in.

There was a lump in the blankets of her bed (it had been transported from their ship... there weren't a whole lot of things human beings found comfy to sleep on in the asteroid base). It looked about her size.

"Supreme Leader?" he called out softly.

Quiet.

He poked what he thought was her shoulder hesitantly.

"Numbuh 362?"

He leaned in.

"Um... Rachel?" Every molecule of his being jangled at the wrongness of saying it.

Then he threw back the blankets and surprise surprise, it was just a bunch of pillows. V8 slapped his forehead in annoyance. He'd just fallen for the oldest one in the coloring book! And they said science geeks were _smart_! Bah!

The Supreme Leader rushed in and almost collided with him as he whipped around, twitching nervously.

"There you are!" she snapped hurriedly before he could think of a single thing to say. She was in mission gear. _Real_ mission gear, with a black stealth suit and a belt with 2x4 tech and everything. Between that and the incredibly intense look on her face, she was actually kinda... no, it wasn't proper to think like that. She was the Supreme Leader! "Come on, we've got to get out of here!"

There wasn't really anything to do but let himself be dragged around to wherever she was headed. He could still talk, at least.

"Supreme Leader, where're we going?!"

"To our ship! We're leaving!"

"But why?! Did... did they give in? What's the hurry!"

"No, I grabbed Numbuh One and tied him up with extra-strength silly string and hauled him to our ship! We need to leave before they figure out that he's missing and start suspecting us! With enough of a head start, we can outrun them till we get to Earth-KND space!"

"Oh, snickerdoodles," V8 mumbled, wishing he'd stayed on the Moonbase. He really missed his nice, safe office.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

362 smiled to herself and relaxed a little once they were on their ship and headed out. Watching V8 run around like a headless chicken was kinda funny. She couldn't really blame him for freaking out, though.

"Relax, V," she said amiably, patting him on the back. "It'll be okay."

The familiarity only made him more twitchy. "What're you talking about?! Sir, we're on a luxury ship! We can't outrun fighting ships that're built to catch things! I never should've come on this mission, it's been weird from the start, I just should've stayed in my lab where everything makes sense..."

She let the minor insubordination slide. "I told you to relax. That's an order," she suggested gently, and was amused to see him actually get relaxed in instinctive obedience. Such a strange kid he was. "I know we're on a big slow tub of lard. Your Supreme Leader was smart enough to compensate for it. I put my old espionage skills to good use and learned a lot about how that base does search and retrieval mission launches. The bays they use for docking and takeoff are pretty vulnerable to sabotage when tons of ships are being brought in or sent out all at once... so I borrowed some of your snoozogenic eggplant bombs and stuck them in quiet little spots that'll only go off if they send out a search team."

For some reason, Numbuh V8's face greened a bit. "Uh. You didn't use the ones in the blue container, did you?"

"Err.... yeah... why?" she asked suspiciously, wishing he'd bothered to actually label stuff in words a reasonably smart kid could understand. Half the words on the labels had been in freaking _Latin_, for crying out loud!

"Oh. Oh dear. Those were highly experimental. Still working out the, um, kinks, you know. They don't so much make people fall asleep when they explode as... err, give them subconscious hypnotic suggestions to go briefly super psycho crazy whenever they blink."

"But... everyone blinks! And... they have to blink even if they don't want or need to, around those horror aliens, or they go crazy anyway!"

"Yeeeessss. That would be my primary concern."

There was a significant pause as the two stared at each other. Simultaneously, they pivoted to look out the window back at the asteroid base.

"Computer, get us the heck out of here," 362 ordered with at least outward calm.

"_Engines are already running at one hundred percent capacity, Supreme Leader._"

"Well... keep them that way!"

"We are gonna be in sooooo much trouble if they catch uuuuusss," V8 whined, holding his head in his hands.

362 snorted. She didn't care _what_ kind of 'trouble' she got in for retrieving an operative that was hers by rights. She wasn't going to be intimidated by a big baby! She was a _kid_, and any kid who let themselves be lorded over by something that didn't even know how to use the toilet yet was no real kid at all as far as she was concerned.

"I'm going to chat with Numbuh One. Call me if anyone starts shooting at us."

V8 whimpered.

She had gagged One at first for stealth's sake, but taken the silly string off his mouth once they were aboard the ship and safe from prying Galactic KND eyes. Of course she still couldn't trust him enough to untie any more than that, so he was awfully uncomfortable, even if she had put him in a nice chair with armrests and padding and everything. Just one more reason to get home asap. She didn't want to have to figure out how he was going to go to the bathroom without it turning into a 'heroic' escape attempt.

"Everything okay, Numbuh One?" she asked him politely, shutting the door behind her.

"Oh, yeah. Everything's swell. I'm being kidnapped by my former superior officer, that's all. This is just awesome."

"There's no need to be snippy. You brought this on yourself, ya know," she chided, wishing he would look at her instead of glare at the wall.

"Oh, did I?! Well, EXCUSE me for trying to protect kids everywhere from adults! I guess I'll just have to try less hard to meet your approval, 'Supreme' Leader!"

She didn't like the nasty twist he put on the word 'supreme.' Like she didn't deserve her rank, like she hadn't earned it and been doing a good job ever since. But she was _not_ gonna be baited into fighting just because he was mad he wasn't in control of things anymore. This wasn't about him or her. This was about the KND and the GKND.

"You know everyone in the KND admires your dedication, Numbuh One. That goes for me, too. But that doesn't give you leave to go running off and doing whatever you feel like. I don't care whose approval you _did_ have, you didn't have _mine_. And that's all that matters as far as I'm concerned, got it?"

He snorted, eyes rolling. "Things must be pretty sucky for kids back on Earth if you need to go to crazy lengths like these to get me back."

"Actually, things are going wonderfully," she told him with complete honesty. Except for _her_, of course. She couldn't be happy no matter how many successful missions she saw reported on her desk, because of that one little niggling insolence called Numbuh One sitting in the back of her mind 24/7. Other than _that_, things had been just fine. "Better than ever, really. A lot of our new operatives are getting seasoned enough to really show their stuff."

"Like your brother?" he asked darkly.

She coughed. Her familial trust had been one minor black mark on her record. And she couldn't quite bring herself to lie about it, either. Not when One had so many reasons to be peeved at her as it was. "Actually, Numbuh 363 was recently... well, demoted for excessive recklessness and endangerment of fellow operatives." That, and for totally freaking out whenever someone so much as tapped him on the shoulder, but she didn't see the need to reveal information that embarrassing.

One smirked, not looking at all surprised. "Heh."

"The rest of his team has gone on to do great things, though," she continued on hurriedly. "Just last week they blew up a coffee creamery. And we've managed to get more direct cooperation from that Tommy, who can be surprisingly helpful as a diversion once you bribe him with enough candy and video game rental coupons."

"Glad to hear it. How's Abby doing with my old team?"

"They'll _still_ be your team, if you ever get your head screwed on straight. You know they'd be glad to have you back. Numbuh Five's doing fine. She takes on her missions a lot different from you... she's a lot more relaxed and a bit more careful... but the team works with her fine, and they've done particularly good with diplomatic missions lately."

"That's about what I'd expect. Abigail's pretty hard to not get along with. You really should consider making her your second instead of that bossy redhead."

It was 362's turn to roll her eyes. She added a sigh along with it. Just went to show that as good as Numbuh One was, he still didn't know nearly as much as he thought he did. Especially about being Supreme Leader. "When you're the highest one on the food chain, you want a second who barks loud so you don't have to," she explained. "As a leader, if you get mad too much and try to intimidate people all the time, then they'll be scared but they'll also start to think that maybe you're weak _because_ you have to yell so much. You need them scared, a little bit, or else they won't do what they're supposed to do. But you need to keep your cool most of the time, too. So you get someone who yells as your second, so you don't have to, and you keep on acting calm and stuff while people look nervously at the dog you're just barely holding on a leash. It helps that Numbuh 86 is in charge of decommissionings, too. She's totally the best second I could ask for."

"Ruling by fear? Is that really the way you wanna go, Rachel? Sounds pretty Fatherlike to me. I hope you don't start asking people to call you Mother."

"Not _all_ by fear, just a little bit!" she snapped, annoyed over the personal name use as well as the totally inaccurate and unwarranted 'Mother' dig. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like _you'd_ know anything about leading. You've got a lot of great qualities but you're more loose cannon than leader and you know it, so don't act like you know how to keep control over hundreds of operatives."

"Maybe not. But I do know enough about missions and diplomacy to know that what you're trying to do right now isn't going to work," he said in such a calm, patient tone that it had her skin crawling. "And if you're better than me at dealing with people, then you have to know it too."

"I don't know what you're talking ab-" she started, only to be interrupted.

"Yes, you do!" he snapped sharp as a whipcrack, glaring at her. Despite herself she actually shifted backwards a little at the intensity of it. "Come on, Rachel, who're you kidding with this harebrain kidnapping idea? What happens when I get back to Earth? The GKND come knocking and try to get me back, that's what. Then the KND will split between those who want to help the GKND and those who want to keep me, and frankly most of the best operatives will be on _my_ side with the GKND because my team is top notch no matter what kind of new rising stars you've got on the roster now! It'll be a war, and it'll be over quickly if we're lucky. If it's not and you somehow keep up a solid defense for more than ten seconds, the adults will hit you while you're busy with the GKND and we'll lose everything. This whole idea is stupid! You'll lose _everything_, Rachel, and it's not like you'll even get me back in exchange! In the end it'll just be you, alone, and decommissioned if you're really lucky and don't land a worse punishment."

Numbuh 362 had known all that, in the back of her mind, when she'd snatched him. She had known and ignored it in the hopes that it would somehow all work out. Because she wanted the universe to be nice and just give her a break for once, to give her this one thing and let it be okay, and she wouldn't ask for anything else. Her best bet had been to just hope that Numbuh One wouldn't be valuable enough for the GKND to bother with, once he was back on Earth. And it wasn't too farfetched. But it _was_ a gamble, and it was a gamble with awful consequences if she'd guessed wrong. The fact that she couldn't rationally justify any of it to herself, the gain compared to the risk, just made her angrier.

So many months of being tired. Of wading through paperwork, of herding lazy, OCD kids like a bunch of cats. Of getting 86 to scare people and then getting her to stop scaring them, at just the right times. Of organizing things, of keeping everything together. Including herself. Especially herself. She just... she had to stop and do something impulsive for a change, for the first time since the tag game. Something really... thoughtless, like a regular kid would do. Why Numbuh One, though, of all the things to fixate on and go crazy over?

She couldn't look in his eyes anymore, but she felt them on her anyway, worse than needles. But although his eyes were needles, his voice was really soft when he spoke again.

"What's this really about, Rachel?"

She really wished he would stop calling her that.

She hadn't been Rachel to anyone that mattered for a long, long time.

"You and I both know I'm just not worth that much," he continued still in that tender kind of voice she couldn't bear to hear, except she couldn't bear to walk away from it either. "You have to risk an awful lot to outdo even _my_ ego, but the whole Earth KND is what you're risking right now, and one operative isn't worth that no matter how good he is. There's gotta be something else to it. Please, stop hiding behind your Supreme Leaderliness and tell me what's really going on. I deserve to know. And I think you need to tell me, because you look really stressed out."

"When _don't_ I look stressed out," she mumbled shakily, pacing around in a tiny circle just for the sake of something to do with her body to get rid of all the nervous energy building up. And words started to just spill out of her mouth, words she had no idea where they were coming from. "I know I was mean to you and all but you _did_ fail in that cake mission like every single time, and you never seemed to feel _bad_ about it or anything, you just keep on walking around like you owned the biggest candy store in the world... if everyone acted like _that_, it would've been, I don't know, chaos or something. No point in having a KND at all if everyone was like you! But don't get me wrong, I like you for being you, you're great and all. I want and need one of you around. But just one of you. I can't take more than that. I thought maybe after you left that I didn't even need that one you, but I was wrong, because it kept itching at the back of my head, every time I assigned your team on a mission and you weren't there to assign! And... and, you didn't even say anything to me before you left, you didn't ask permission or even wave or leave a note or _anything_, you were just _gone_, and people aren't supposed just _go away_ like that without telling everyone something first... and... I don't know..."

There was a painful pause as 362 fought to swallow the lump in her throat.

"I guess I can be pretty mean sometimes, too, without meaning to," One finally said. There was absolutely no way she could look at him, but she couldn't stop from hearing, and the words hurt without her knowing why. "We're both pretty thoughtless sometimes. Part of being a kid."

"I guess." Her voice was a hoarse thing, half-croak half-whisper. She hated it.

"Maybe... maybe you just needed a chance to say goodbye," he suggested, like he was thinking out loud.

Completely without her wanting it to do so, her body jumped at him and she buried her face in his chest, arms wrapped around him. She didn't dare speak. She definitely didn't dare look up at him, see whatever expression was on his face. It wasn't something she could stand. Instead, she just kept herself like that, quivering, ashamed to feel tears leak out through her clenched eyelids and dampen his shirt. His hands wrapped around her loosely, one patting her back in that awkward way boys did for girls when they wanted to be comforting but didn't really get what was going on. Then she realized with a start that that meant he'd gotten his flipping arms free of the silly string, but couldn't bring herself to care. That was just so Numbuh One. He'd escape out of anything, fight anything, do anything. He was Numbuh One. Even Father couldn't hope to contain him, and she was no Father.

Once 362 had actually done it, the hardest part was stopping. She didn't straighte herself up until she was completely sure she had stopped crying and that there wer eno obvious signs of tears to humiliate her further in front of him. Then she forced herself to let go and straighten up, becoming Supreme Leader again. Because she had a job. Even if it was a lonely one.

"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time, and looked at each other in surprise.

"That was kinda cliche," she pointed out with a bittersweet twist on her lips.

"Yeah." He smiled at her. "So... look, we can turn this whole thing around. You have a right to be mad about all the authoritorial... circumventigation stuff. We definitely need to work out something more consistent between the GKND and the planet KNDs. Tell you what, if you turn back now, I can help you make your case in front of the Grand Brat, and we won't mention the whole tying me up with silly string thing."

He was already out of the silly string, too. Blasted dumb super-competent operative. She could have forcefed him veggies and put him in a coma for the trip, but nooooo, she had to be _nice_ about it!

Then things she'd done to delay the GKND crossed her mind... sabotagey things involving experimental vegetables that didn't have quite all the kinks worked out yet. She gulped, knowing that she was in a place with no way out and no happy ending now. All her fault. She could have stayed behind her desk, been a good little Supreme Leader, swallowed her pride and never seen Numbuh One again...

No, she couldn't have.

She couldn't even imagine not seeing him again, and maybe that was the real problem.

When the annoying computer's voice announced an attack, 362 didn't have to listen to the details. She closed her eyes and let out a soft sigh that seemed to move through her whole body, draining it of tension. There was nothing to look forward to, just total despair. She'd lost the game no matter what. But at least she didn't have anything left to lose, either. Numbuh One's panicking was almost funny, ringing in her ears as if from a distance.

She knew the attack would be aimed at their engines, because the GKND would want One back, and herself and V8 captured to humiliate. And she knew their own ship didn't stand a chance, so there was no point in even trying to defend. And she knew Numbuh One needed to calm down, because _he_ was gonna be alright at least, jeez...

The yelling in her ears got loud enough to snap her out of her funk, and she actually understood what she was hearing.

"DON'T JUST STAND THERE, FATHER'S GONNA MELT US TO SCRAP!"

Crud. And Father had been so quiet lately she'd just plain forgotten about him. 362 didn't really have anything left to lose, but she didn't want poor V8 and One burn to rice krispy treats, either.

"Darn," she said with such bored calm that One stared at her in shock. "I guess we'll have to mount some kinda defense. You ready to perform the impossible on cue, Nigel?"

It took a moment, but he grinned at her. His usual devil-may-care grin that didn't give a spitball for whatever happened next so long as he had fun. "Same as usual, Supreme Leader."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"SINCE WHEN COULD HE TURN INTO A FREAKING DRAGON?!" Numbuh VWhocares was freaking out increasingly more with every blast of fiery breath to their ship, despite 362's orders to not be a distraction.

"Oh, I didn't tell you about that?" Numbuh One was in his element, struggling dangerously against impossible odds for his very survival. They had found him a spacesuit and improvised an extra-long carrot lance for a weapon, along with a super-puffy broccoli shield, but neither carrot nor broccoli would last forever, and even the spacesuit would be rendered dangerously ineffective if it took so much as direct hit from Father. It was a situation that required demanding precision, furious speed, ruthlessly efficient assault, and no pauses whatsoever to think things over.

In short, Numbuh One was treating it like a video game.

He was actually having _fun_, for the first time in quite a long time. And he didn't really understand why, either. The GKND had sent him on even more dangerous missions before, against even worse odds. He'd fought adults who'd make Father look like a burnt marshmallow by comparison! Venusian Disciplinarians who spanked kids so hard their butts fell off, and Centaurian Utensil Organizers who put kids into labor camps to categorize twelve thousand different types of vegetable-cutting tools, and the Orionic Learnererists who jammed educational information into kid brains until their heads swelled to ten times the size of their bodies. Father was a small fry by now. He didn't require an army, or orbital jelly bean bombardment, or careful bribery with enriched extra chocolately super chocolatastic chocolate over a series of years. Numbuh One could feasibly take Father on all by himself and win, with some luck.

But somehow, as he ducked near-fatal fireball after slightly-less-near-fatal fireball, Nigel Uno had a thrill coursing through his veins that had been missing for months. Here was a villain who knew his name. A villain he was _related_ to, even, just like in some classic epic adventure story. A villain that rarely won, but still came just close enough almost all the time to make you think about what would have happened if you'd been even a split second slower. All fire and darkness and rage and a booming voice, and to Numbuh One it was almost like being home again.

Wait a second.

Cheese and crackers, had he actually _missed Father_?!

The thought struck him so jarringly that he paused, floating aimlessly a few inches above the enemy ship's hull, and got hit full force in the chest for his moment of weakness. The fire burned a hole in the spacesuit almost instantly, but One was prepared for it and clutched it shut, sealing it with some of the very silly string that had been used to capture him a few hours ago. Father had closed in, expecting to make an easy grab of vulnerable pray, but the One surprised him, using the tail lash to run up along Father's spiked spine and lob some spinach gas bombs straight into Father's currently reptiley eyes. Roaring in agony, hissing dragon-sized tears rolling down Father's cheeks, he flailed about, and One took that as an invitation to use the momentum to smash feet first through the enemy ship's front window.

Numbuh One chuckled as he used a few more nasty veggie weapons to smack around his five least favorite kids. Their faces turned blue in unison as they held their breaths from space's airlessness, prevented from getting to their own spacesuits.

"You really should have made them wear the spacesuits all the time just in case of funny little accidents like this!" he called out to Father tauntingly. "Lazy parenting if you ask me!"

"HOW _DARE_ YOU IMPLY THAT I DON'T TAKE CARE OF MY KIDS!" Father roared in fullblown tantrum mode. In his fury he actually smashed _through_ the ship entirely, breaking it to rubble while coiling around the Children From Down the Lane protectively. With surprising precision and delicacy, those huge dragon claws worked to slip the spacesuits over the delightfulized dorks while One rocketed away to his own ship.

That had worked out better than expected. His lance was broken and his shield was reduced to a couple sad-looking twigs, but Father had destroyed his own ship. And even if he _could_ travel through space as a dragon, that still left the Delightfuls extremely exposed. Now all that was left to do was outrun that dragonbreath with every puff of speed the luxury cruiser could manage, and they'd be home free.

He told 362 as much when he slipped back inside their ship, taking off his helmet and twirling it cheerfully. A grin was working at his mouth that could definitely not be held down. He was even feeling generous towards V... whatever, who was seriously whiny but had come up with some _great_ equipment.

"Thanks for the veggie tools, V5," he said with an offered handshake, taking a random guess at the kid's name.

VWhatever's eyebrows ran back and forth like hyper dogs chasing each other. "Numbuh V-_EIGHT_, thank you," he said stiffly, not shaking. After an awkward moment One shrugged and put his hand down. "You took so many risks, it was insane! And you broke the carrot lance! Do you know how long it takes to _grow_ those things?!"

"Relax, it was all for a good cause." One leaned over to 362, who looked tired but satisfied and content in a way that he hadn't seen on her face in... ever, now that he thought about it. "_Do his eyebrows always wiggle around like that?_" he whispered to her.

"_Only when he's stressed out,_" she whispered back.

"Ah." He watched the eyebrows some more, thinking that entire tv channels had been made out of less interesting things. "So... where are we headed from here?" he asked the room in general delicately. He was ready to make a fight of it if he had to, but Numbuh 362 had had enough conflict for a while and he was ready to cut her a break if she was willing to see reason.

362 hesitated while VWhatever stared at her piercingly. Clearly this was her decision and he wanted her to say something in particular. But what, who knew except VWhozit himself.

"We're going back to the asteroid base," she said finally, suddenly seeming gray and weak and floppy. But her face was calm and certain, if sad. "V8, I'm sorry I dragged you into this whole mess. I'll take full responsibility for everything and do my best to get you back to Earth's Moonbase where you belong. Other than that, the pickup sticks can fall where they may."

VBlahblah's eyebrows went absolutely still for a moment, and then he just exploded, doing a better Father imitation than _Father_ actually did on some off days. "WHAT?! ARE YOU INSANE?! AFTER EVERYTHING WE WENT THROUGH TO... AND LYING TO EVERYONE AT THE MOONBASE... AND THE SABOTAGE... AND KIDNAPPING HIM AND FATHER AND AND... WE'RE JUST GOING TO _GIVE HIM BACK_?!"

362 just stood there quietly and took it all, looking ashamed. Everything about her seemed to droop downwards slightly. "I know, V8. I know. All I can say is that I haven't been a very good Supreme Leader lately. If they don't decommission me or something, I'll probably retire after this."

One was as frazzled as though he'd been hit by another one of Father's fire blasts. Decommissioning?! Retirement?! Hadn't she learned anything from their talk during the tag game? She wasn't the kind of person to just give up, was she? She hadn't been when he'd been around!

...maybe, the thought came to him, that was in fact the problem.

He'd left, and maybe there hadn't been anyone else to tell her not to give up. Just maybe.

These gloomy thoughts almost kept him from noticing that VHuh was actually visibly trembling in anger.

"You look like you need an energy cube," he said with cautious sympathy, pulling one of the generic GKND rations out. It was orange, but pulsed green in a rhythm that he happened to know for some reason was the exact same as _Oh Susannah_. They looked gross, but were scientofragilisticaly made to taste like pure sugar, and kept you going for hours.

Even if they weren't quite as good as Mom's lumpy buttered mashed potatoes or Dad's slightly burnt crunchy bacon....

He shook that thought out of his head. He had a new life now. A more important one, with more important things to do than fool around with old friends, old enemies, old family.

"What the heck is that thing?" VWhoCaresAnyway said in disgust, backing away.

"I dunno," One admitted, "but it's pretty good. It'll perk you right up, trust me."

"I don't trust you and I don't need perking in any direction!"

"V8, please, don't be mad." 362 tried to reconcile things. "I know things are crazy right now but I promise I won't let any of the blame for all this stuff fall on you."

"You can't promise me anything," he muttered sulkily. "You don't know what's gonna happen when the GKND get us. I trusted you and you turned out to be... to be just a..."

"A kid?" One suggested pointedly.

VBlah flushed. "That's not what I was trying to say!"

"It's the truth, though," One went on, very calm. "Kids are impulsive and sometimes a little stupid. They don't think about consequences much. If they did, they'd be adults, wouldn't they?"

VRandomnumber's tiny pale fists clenched. "Are you trying to say I'm a grownup? You'd better take that back, or I swear I'll..."

"Or you'll what?"

They stared each other down, both deaf to 362's pleadings to not be, well, boys. Boys had fights. It was the way of things. They had fights, and they felt better afterwards, and girls never understood.

Even so, it was almost a relief when a bunch of angry-sounding GKND ships interrupted the escalating conflict. Numbuh One had _not_ looked forward to a battle that would probably involve the taste of beans and asparagus in his mouth.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

362 had expected a trial. What she had _not_ expected was to be on trial for being a double agent working for the adults, tied up alongside Father and the Delightful Children from Down the Lane! Nor had she ever thought that her actions could somehow implicate Numbuh One, who was also unhappy to join the party. It wasn't even so much a trial as an interrogation session with a lot of people watching. And having the gall to munch snacks while they watched. Jerks.

Father had been subdued by the GKND in his dragon form despite all his fury and fire, and his five minions captured with him. It _had_ taken almost twenty ships, to be fair. All six of them, like 362 herself and V8 and One, were immobilized very thoroughly by some slimy metal strands that Numbuh One had explained as being 'subduium, the universe's strongest, most subduingest element ever, originally cooked up in GKND labs to paralyze adult super megaton antimatter nanny-tanks.' It slithered and moved around and tightened so there was no way to wiggle out, and even Father's powers seemed unable to melt it. The uberparental villain sat straight and seemingly calm, deprived of his black suit but not his poise.

Too bad Numbuh 362 couldn't have said the same for anyone else. Numbuh One was pissed that he was a suspect in the whole mess, V8 seemed like he was quietly heading for some kind of mental breakdown, and even the Delightfuls were freaked by Father's apparent powerlessness. She, as leader of Earth's KND and the one ultimately responsible for a lot of what was wrong right now, felt the need to match Father's dignity, but she was having a rough time of it. Outside she seemed fine, but inside she was trembling and scared. She knew it wouldn't take much to crack her, to her self-disgust.

"TEW USH AGAIN HOW YOO MEANT TO SABOTAGE THUH GAWACTIC KIDS NEXT DOWAH," the Grand Brat insisted. "EFEWY WITTLE DETAIL."

Heaving a sigh, wishing she could brush the ragged stramds pf hair off her forehead, 362 went into the whole thing again. They'd been over it a jillion times and the Grand Brat just wouldn't let it go, clinging with the tenacity only a completely self-centered toddler had. She couldn't really blame the Grand Brat for not believing that she hadn't meant to drive half station into self-destructive chaos. Even the audience chamber was full of signs of it: banged up decorations, flickering lights, graffiti, a lot of watching operatives with bruises and bandages. But to be accused of working with _Father_! It was insulting, really, only she couldn't afford to let herself feel insulted.

The official story so far, as the GKND seemed to believe it, was that 362 and V8 were spies working for the adults of Earth. Numbuh One had either been infected or been a secret traitor all along, and had helped with the sabotage. Father had been coordinating things but there had been a political power struggle between him, One, and her, and that had caused a scuffle that weakened everyone enough to be captured and brought to, hah, justice.

Numbuh One had been heartbreakingly distraught at first. But as he went over his list of successful mission for kids both on his homeplanet and all over the galaxy, and yelled out again and again his passionate love for kiddom everywhere and his hatred of adulthood, he got angrier and angrier. They just ignored him and it fueled his anger till he looked ready to sink his teeth in the Grand Brat's throat. It was a situation Numbuh 362 was a little glad to see, but she felt really bad about liking it. It was selfish. She didn't want him to be hurt, to have all that time in the GKND turn out to have been a total waste for him. Except... part of her did, a bit.

Numbuh V8 was suspiciously quiet and still. His eyebrows were the only thing that moved, and through the whole thing he had a twisted little smile on his face that made 362's gut churn. She just knew something bad was cooking there. She'd trusted him so much because he was so professional, so concerned about doing the right thing for the cause... but it hadn't occurred to her that those traits could make him rebel against her for not living up to his expectations. As hard as she worked, she'd screwed up this time, and it only took one screwup to fall off the pedestal. She was a little scared of him, honestly, but she also felt sorry for him too. He'd been assuming all along that she was... what, just like him? And that she'd known what she was doing when she'd dragged him along into this crazy situation, far away from everything he was used to and trained to handle. If he was going cuckoo, it was her fault. Like her, he was a desk jockey. Neither of them were super great out in the field, and she'd gotten an ugly reminder of that.

She really didn't understand why the Grand Brat (he had a name, but she couldn't pronounce it even in her head) was so stuck on her and V8 and One all being aligned with Father. It didn't make any sense. If it were true, why sabotage a KND operation only now? And why only do something so _small_, something that could be cleaned up and forgotten about in a couple weeks?

One of the cosmic horror blink warning signs fell down with a loud clang, and she revised that estimate to maybe a monthish. But still.

Then their giant baby tormentor revealed the big thing that 362 hadn't known or even suspected, grinning ogrishly at her shocked expression, apparently taking it for guilt.

"DO YOO DENY OPEWUHTIVE VEE EIGHT'SH HAVING A PIECE OF HIGHWEE DANGEWOUS ADUWT TECHNOWOGY IN HISH EQUIPMENT?"

Everything froze for a second, and then her brain started firing on all cylinders again.

"What the rainbow monkey pooty are you talking about?! V8 is my most loyal operative! He'd _never_ give in to adulthood!" And it was true, too. Sure, he used a bunch of really creepy plants for tools and interrogated kids sometimes... but it had all been to further the KND cause against adults. V8 couldn't even talk about grownups without his expression turning into an automatic yucky face. She'd sooner believe _she_ was a traitor than _him_.

Too bad he didn't seem to appreciate the sentiment. Of course, he was busy being shocked at the new accusation, eyes wide as plates. Poor kid.

With a dramatic gesture, the cosmic horror assistant wheeled a small tray up close into the light. On it was a strange looking cubic thing. It looked like one of those stupid puzzles adults said were good for your brain but were in fact super frustrating and annoying.

"Th-that's just a puzzle some GKND operatives gave me..." V8 stammered. 362 looked at him sharply. So she hadn't been the only careless one around here. Well, as one had pointed out, kids would be kids. And kids played. Even V8, apparently, in his own way.

"TWAITUHWOUS WIAH!" the Grand Brat roared while everyone nearby leaned sharply to avoid the huge sprayed globs of jelly-like spittle. "THISH ISH NO MEYAH PUZZWE, BUT A STEAWTH DEWIGHTFUWIZATION DEVISHE!"

"There must be some kind of mistake, that can't be true!" 362 winced. V8 looked so... so helpless and weak and... basically everything he ordinarily was, he wasn't. He almost looked ready to cry. A _boy_, close to tears! It was the saddest thing she'd ever seen.

"Now, now, my loyal minion, there's no need to keep pretending," Father spoke up unexpectedly. Outsie of the suit his voice was kind of nerdy and unimpressive... except that there was a subtle, nasty dark undertone to it now that set 362's skin to crawling. That big adult jerk was just going to spin the story the way the Grand Brat wanted it! "He's such a good actor, you see," Father went on in an almost conspiratorial tone to the Grand Brat. "And so very loyal... to _us_, that is. Why, even now, when things are clearly lost for the side of maturity, he may keep on faking being a loyal KND operative. He's that dedicated. It's touching, really."

It was too much. 362 couldn't take any more of it. Hadn't V8 suffered enough?!

"You lying sack of ash and sulfur, V8 isn't one of yours and you know it!" 362 snarled.

"SIWENCE, TWAITUH!" the Grand Brat boomed, and hocked a loogie. It splatted on her head and slammed her to the ground where she groaned and squirmed ineffectually in disgust. "FATHUH, YOU WIWW TEWW USH EGGZAKLEE HOW DHIS INSHIDIOUSH DEFISHE WOWKS!"

"Certainly, your Grand Brattiness," Father replied with uncharacteristic humility. "This is one of my greatest creations, but still very much in the experimental stages. I wanted to test it somewhere well away from Earth, just in case it proved a little dangerous. So I had my Delightful Children From Down the Lane give it to V8 for a proper testing-"

"BOWING!" the Grand Brat shouted. "TEWW USH HOW IT ACTIVATESH!"

"Of course, of course. The puzzle aspect on the outside is just a shielding mechanism... it's not meant to be solvable. Instead, it scans for a local individual with total dedication to the cause of childhood and infantilism, discerned by their brain wave patterns. Once it's found someone with that level of dedication, it opens itself up to release nanomachines to delightfulize the target. Subconscious suggestions to keep this new loyalty hidden from other KND operatives are also implanted, along with an absolute obedience to orders given by any adult."

Having partially struggled free from the alien saliva, 362 had her ears unclogged enough that she could hear clearly when pretty much every kid in the room gasped in shock at the horrible explanation. It was sneaky. It was treacherous. It was Pure Evil. And it was totally the kind of thing Father would do.

"What a load of rainbow monkey droppings!" One shouted out, incensed. "Obviously any agent of the KND who was totally dedicated wouldn't let themselves be delightfulized so easily!"

"Forgotten us so soon, Nigel?" five eerily-coordinated voices called out to him serenely. The Delightfuls were smiling at him, a sight to make even Numbuh One nervous. He visibly swallowed. "Within every misbehaving child lurks a seed that desires to grow into a well-behaving good little boy or girl. We all want approval and the tender guiding care of an adult, even if we pretend we don't. Isn't that right, Father?"

"Exactly, my sweet little dears," Father said, sniffling in sentiment at the little speech. "You put it so beautifully! Kids go bad so very easily with the wrong influences, but they all _want_ to be good, really." He grinned, and 362 wondered if she was imagining the tiny wisp of smoke trailing through his straight white teeth. "My new stealth delightfulization device taps into that."

"SO, EFEN IF V8 WUSH NOT A DOUBWE AGENT INITIAWWY, IT ISH POSHIBWE HE ISH ONE NOW," the Grand Brat said slowly, scratching at a bellybutton so deep his finger almost disappeared entirely into it. The sound was like tires rolling frantically in a bog of mud.

Almost hypnotized by the horrifying situation, 362 and pretty much everyone else in the room turned to stare at Numbuh V8, who was straight and stiff as a board, almost like the subduium wasn't there. His eyebrows were, oddly, completely still, but droplets of sweat were rolling slowly, almost ominously down his reddening face. One vein in his forehead pulsed slightly, and it wasn't in time with a heartbeat. He started to say something, stopped. Started again with a completely different word, then stopped again. Then he made a few random nonsense mumbling sounds.

Fascinated with intense dread and pity, she watched on as V8 was so clearly caught between two equally intense motivations: claiming that he was SO the most dedicated and loyal kid, and claiming that he was the least likely to give in to delightfulization.

"He looks like he's gonna practically explodiate," One muttered to her, having inches close enough to talk. They looked at each other, then back at V8, and then very carefully inched as far away from the conflicted operative as they could manage without being noticed. Just in case.

"WEWW, V8? DO YOO HAVE ANY DEFENSHE FOO YOOSEWF?" the Grand Brat prompted, tapping one suspiciously flexible toe. "AWE YOO A COMPWETEWY WOYAW TWAITUH TO USH, OW AWE YOO A MODEWATEWEE WOYAW SUPAH NON-COMPETENT OPEWATIFE?"

"I... I... I, I, I..." V8 stammered helplessly.

"WHAT DO YOU HAFF TO SHAY FOO YOOSEWF?!"

"I,... I..."

"SHPEAK LOUDAH!"

"_I want my mommy!_" V8 shrieked, the sound struggling its way out of his throat in a piecing, trembling wail. He cowered, bending over himself and rocking back and forth, more pathetic than any of his veggie-tormented captives had been when he was done with them.

The entire room, especially 362, held its breath. A sharp silence came into being that was broken, painfully, by the Grand Brat.

"THEWE YOO HAFF IT! HE CWIES OUT FOW AN ADUWT AUTHAHWITEE FIGYUH! BETWAYED BY HIS OWN WOWDS! TAKE HIM AWAY! TAKE THEM _AWW_ AWAY! THEY WIWW BE DEAWT WIFF SHOON ENOUFF!"

She wanted to apologize to V8 as they were all dragged out in disgrace, KND operatives and Father and Delightfuls alike. She wanted to hug him, or comfort him, or at least cry with him (his cheeks were dripping, now). There wasn't a chance to do any of it, though. The best she could do was look at him with intense sadness, and he was too busy sobbing to notice anyway.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

They'd all been given nice, comfy cells protected with the latest in 2x13.2 technology. Due to a rather creepy architectural touch, the cells were arrayed in a rough circle, and they all rotated around to change the order every couple hours or so. The walls were all solid and boring white, no windows, with the only view out being the view straight out crisscrossed with electrified bars, so it was pretty clear what the point was. The prisoners were supposed to sit there and stare out at their fellow evildoers and think about all the ways they'd all been naughty and how bad they should be feeling over it.

In the whole place, there was only one real decoration, a sign that lit up regularly in various languages. Every once in a while it came up in English. It read:

**IF YOU ARE HERE, YOU HAVE BEEN THINKING TOO MUCH**

Of course. Kids preferred to _act_. Adults were always telling them to think more, but if they thought all the time they'd just be stupid crumby adults, wouldn't they? Adults thought all the time and forgot about having fun, they were so busy thinking about all the ways they were unhappy.

And yet, lately, everything Numbuh 362 berated herself for was not thinking enough, rather than thinking too much.

One's career was potentially ruined. V8 was the same, only he was falling to pieces in his head, too. Her own career was probably down the toilet. And there had been genuine dangerous sabotage to a GKND base, even if she hadn't meant for it to be this bad. All her fault. If she'd considered the consequences more, maybe she could have come up with a better plan....

She was thinking too much.

Every day, it was like that. She thought too much because no one else around her seemed to do much thinking at all! Maybe if the stupid GKND hadn't been so set on assuming she and V8 and One were with Father, things wouldn't have come to this! If they'd only listened to reason instead of being so, so impulsive, so stupid and bratty and selfish....

She didn't realize she was grinding her teeth over and over until she bit her lip, yelping at the sudden pain.

The sound drew the gaze of Father, who had somehow managed to find a shadow in his cell and sit in it so he looked almost like his normal self again. His cell was close to hers while still giving them a clear view of each other, something 362 hoped would change soon. She liked it better when he was directly next to her so there was no way to see him. Unfortunately that still left the Delightfuls, but the creepy in sync kids were, at least, kids of a sort.

"Having trouble sleeping, Miss McKenzie?" He couldn't do anything to make his voice less nerdy, but somehow it sent chills down her spine anyway. It so did not help that he knew her last name.

Everyone else was napping, having gotten tired from useless breakout attempts. Father and her were the only ones left alert. She wanted to nap, to embrace unconsciousness, but she kept thinking about what a waste of time it was when important things were going on. There was that thinking thing again.

"Not sleepy," she said curtly, hoping he would shut up and leave her alone.

No such luck, he somehow took that as an invitation to ramble on.

"It's frustrating, isn't it," he said, and just left the sentence _hanging_ there until finally, out of annoyance, she asked him...

"_What?!_"

"Oh, you know. The Galactic KND being so easily manipulated by my spontaneous and, to be honest, somewhat shoddily-crafted lies." His voice drifted from the shadow as though it were a physical thing, and the body it was coming from was irrelevant. It didn't have its usual power and anger to it, but instead, an almost sympathetic tone, laced with weary cynicism. "They believe what they want to believe, something nice and convenient that doesn't require them to... as that cute little sign reminds us... think. It's all about doing what's cool with them, never mind the sacrifices people like you have made for the greater good, never mind that, with such a stellar record of service, it may be forgivable if you snap a little under the strain. But what do kids know of strain, anyway? They don't know a thing. They just play all the time. Even their work is play. Not like _your_ work. Your work... is work. Isn't it?"

"You don't know anything about me or what I do, so don't act like you know it all," she growled, sitting down to rest her elbows on her knees and then her head on her upturned hands. If he was trying some kind of psychomowhatsit on her, it was gonna be wasted. They were all doomed, she was pretty sure, at this point. But even so, she would never betray the KND, nor hte kids in it. The stupid, lazy, short-sighted undisciplined kids....

"Oh, I hear things around," Father responded mildly. "Things about how much the operatives complain when you do silly, pointless things like make them keep to their schedules, and force them to do the jobs they say they'll do, and assign operatives in teams according to which ones accomplish missions together the best instead of according to who wants to hang out with who. And then there's all that paperwork. Believe me, Miss McKenzie, I know all about paperwork. And kids. I've fought against them my whole life, ever since I stopped being one."

Her head jerked up so fast it left her neck aching painfully. She stared, even though there was nothing to see but a dark corner with indistinct clothes and body parts lurking in it. "So you _were_ a kid, once?" she asked cautiously, half-disbelieving, half _wanting_ to believe, for some reason. "Just like V8 and One and me?"

"Just like V8. And One. And you. Perhaps a bit more like you than the others," he added. She saw a bit of his smile then, and a wisp of smoke drifted out that she definitely was not imagining. It was like talking to... well, the dragon he sometimes turned into. "i tried to help them, let them have fun while still doing what was right to keep everything running as it should. But dontcha know it, those spoiled little monkeys just run wild if you give them any leeway. They do anything they want, and never really care what happens so long as it's fun on the way. They don't give a single thought to duty! Or honor! Or self-respect, or the integrity of society, or productive growth as individuals! They just mess around... playing with their wretched little 2x4 _toys_ and do they care how much it costs? Never! They never care about the _cost_... of _anything_!" As he ranted on, his voice became progressively darker and more angry until at that last word he was practically snarling, and a large puff of smoke flew out of the cell... only to be electrified into nothingness by the bars. Then suddenly he flipped back to calm again, as though someone had pushed a switch on him. "But _you_ count the cost, don't you Miss McKenzie?" he said gently. "It's your job to be the one who works, the one who does all the math. So the rest of those little ingrates don't have to. We adults have a word for what you are. Would you like to know what it is?"

"Would you not tell me if I said I didn't care?" she asked him, feelings twisting and boiling inside her, her tongue feeling like a heavy weight. She had no idea what she felt, except that whatever it was, she felt it really really strongly.

"It's a big adult word. It's called a martyr, Miss McKenzie. You are a martyr. A martyr, you see, is someone who takes all the blame and all the hardships from other people so those other people can live their lives feeling like they're just swell, without thinking too much. Give it all to the martyr, the martyr can handle it. And may all the rainbow monkeys in the universe take pity on a martyr who ever dares to get angry about her situation. Why, if she stopped wanting to be a martyr, well gosh, that would meant the other kids would have to take responsibility. And kids never take responsibility. Not on their own. No... you have to _force_ them to." He reached out of the shadow with one hand, clenching it into a fist at the word 'force.' Fire flickered orange inside the palm for a second, but somehow it seemed comforting, like a campfire, rather than scary.

"They don't mean any harm," 362 heard herself saying. "They just wanna have fun."

"Ah, but fun has its price. And who pays it, while they're off with their little fun and games?"

"Kids have the right to have fun," she insisted strongly, even though her voice was a little shaky. What was a world without fun? Without ice cream, or skateboards, or video games?

It would be... a lot more peaceful without that stuff, but more boring, too.

And... and if she couldn't have those things... maybe she was fine with being extra bored so people like One could run off and do their thing. Maybe that was her... her place in life, or whatever. To be the martyr. She liked the sound of the word.

"So let them have it, then! In carefully moderated, scheduled doses. Five to five-fifteen pm daily, Sundays and Mondays excepted, with everything carefully monitored so they don't hurt themselves, or anyone else. Or start making martyrs by shoveling their own little piles of duty onto better kids, like baggage on a mule. Kids can still have fun with adults ruling over them, you know. My sweet Delightfuls have _plenty_ of fun! Well thought-out fun."

"Safety at the cost of freedom? Isn't there like a kajillion movies about how that kinda trade's never worth it?" she pointed out, to cover up for the fact that she couldn't remember much about any single one of them. Being able to quote would've come in handy here, but she was always too busy with those... stupid _papers_... doing the work other people hadn't _wanted_ to do....

No wonder 86 had never asked her to a slumber party. She would've just politely refused anyway. It was depressing, but maybe that was just her destiny. Martyr, martyr, martyr.

"I don't know. You tell me," he baited her calmly, almost like he was talking to a fellow adult. He leaned out of the shadow to look at her, and she'd never been quite so entranced by such a dorky face before. "Miss McKenzie, are you _happy_ being the martyr?"

362 tried to reply, but her breath was stuck in her throat and her tongue wouldn't move.

"That's the chief irony of the whole silly KND situation, you know," he went on companionably. "The thing can't possibly stay together without someone at the top playing the adult. Kids _need_ someone to tell them what to do, at the end of the day. And that's why so very many of my best teen operatives have been former Supreme Leaders, people just like you. Kids _need_ adults. But adults don't need kids. In our generosity we try to help you children, show you a better way of life... but so many of you are so very ungrateful." He sighed and shook his head, leaning back into shade. "But they'll all be adults one day. Whether they want to be or not."

She looked over at One, sleeping on his back with a light snore coming out his mouth, and imagined V8, who she couldn't see right now. V8 was probably snoozing in some really silly dignified posture like sitting up against the wall. Unless he'd just curled into a fetal position and drifted off while crying. She really hoped that wasn't the case.

"I can't picture One ever growing up," she said honestly. "Or V8 ever... _allowing_ himself to grow up," she phrased very carefully. It wasn't quite the same thing. One was boldly immature and always would be. V8 was actually, like her, scarily mature in a ton of ways... but he would never ever accept that, she knew. "They hate adults. They hate everything you stand for. One lives to fight for freedom, and V8 lives to prove that he's loyal and not a traitor like the rest of his family. If you took that stuff away you wouldn't even have what made them _them_ anymore."

"My Delightful Children would disagree."

"Your Delightful Children are monsters," she stated flatly, not caring if he was offended or not.

There was a barely visible shrug from the shadows. "But well-behaved, you must admit. Very considerate and polite. That's alright, we can agree to disagree. After all... it's your martyrdom."

"I don't need to be happy to be a kid who is... who is doing something worthwhile and productive with her life," she said slowly, eyes closed, feeling a kind of grim courage fill her up in saying it. She had purpose. She had conviction.

Father chuckled. "Even when you state your defiance against adulthood, you say it like an adult would. You would be such a Delightful daughter."

That was the end of the conversation, mostly because she turned her back to him and stared at the boring wall instead. Eventually, she drifted off, her forehead resting on the wall.

Sometime later, she was woken up by GKND guards and told gruffly that the Grand Brat had decided on some preliminary punishment before the actual sentence was decided on and carried out.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

There was plenty of time for them to anticipate the mysterious, awful punishment headed there way as Numbuh V8, Numbuh One, and Numbuh 362 were taken to a room with nothing but a bunch of pillars in the middle and tied up to those pillars with more of that icky slithery subduium. Way too much time for V8's tastes. He'd already had too much time to think and brood in the company of that bald maverick and 362, whose THING had led them all to destruction. He didn't want time to think anymore. He wanted to _do_ something. Anything. Even if it meant accepting his ultimate fate. Whatever it was, he could take it better than wondering and anticipating. About the only bright side of the whole was that at least Father and his five pets hadn't been brought along with the rest of them.

He wondered why.

"Oh, no," One moaned suddenly, eyes widening in realization. "Not splurgy ball!"

Alien GKND operatives stepped into visibility from all around, holding mesh bags of slimy, sticky, damp balls in a dozen different bright colors. Some of the balls blurbled.

"Splurgy ball," one of them confirmed coldly, closing in, gently tossing a blue bubbly yeasty sphere from one tentacle to another, over and over.

V8 hoped that some of them had sight based on movement, like the dino in _Jurassic Park_, and kept himself very very still. He pretended he was back in his lab on the Moonbase, figuring out how to grow those green bean lassoes he'd been thinking about making for the last couple weeks. Or maybe in his interrogation cell, having a few pointed 'questions' submitted to a much smaller version of the Grand Brat. Or Numbuh One. Or the Delightful Children. Or 362. Buncha jerks. None of them cared about anyone but themselves. None of them cared for the great cause of fighting adult tyranny, not like _he_ did. None of them understood how important it was to really give your all to beat back those dumb controlling slavemaster adults! His fantasy stopped short of imagining interrogating Father, because even in his fantasies V8 had a certain level of practicality and realism he couldn't bring himself to give up.

"Isn't that your gunner?" he heard 362 muttering to One in surprise.

"Uh... yeah..."

"Well, talk to him! Her, it, whatever!"

One gulped. "Well it's kind of... complicated..."

"Hey, Numbuh One," the cosmic horror gunner said with the kind of friendly voice that was really not friendly at all.

"Hi... KlKLkleEEp... I don't suppose you'd mine putting down that splurgy ball? Eheh... heh..."

"You remember all those times I asked you out on a date, and you said yes, and then you blew me off for a mission someone else could've done?" she went on in that same tone.

V8's flesh would've crawled except, honestly, he didn't care what happened to One, and was just glad the focus wasn't on him _anymore_.

"I do now," One said wearily, hanging his head. "I must've pulled that on you at least a dozen times."

"Fourteen times," his gunner corrected him curtly. She raised the blueberry-like bubbling pod up.

362 started laughing. "Hahahah! I can't believe it... Lizzie all over again... even in space you're still you, Nigel... oh jeez, that's a reli-ULCK!"

"This is punishment, not a joke!" KlKLkleEEp snarled, having thrown the ball right into 362's mouth, leaving her spitting and coughing and gagging in disgust. The ball seemed to get absorbed into her mouth and lips, leaving behind a dark blue stain. The scientific part of V8's mind was interested, and wondered if it tasted bad.

That was the signal for everyone else to jump in, apparently, and operatives began throwing balls at the three of them rapid fire. It was basically dodgeball from PE all over again minus the dodging, which was, V8 had to admit, a darn good torture method. The balls themselves had interesting quirks, too. Some of them were hot, hot enough to be really uncomfortable if not quite burn. Others were icy cold, and getting a hot and a cold one close together made for an incredibly unpleasant sensation combo. Some were sticky and clung to the skin as oozy deflated membranes, and some itched maddeningly like mosquito bites. Only a few seconds into it V8 already wanted a shower more badly than he'd ever wanted anything in his life, and the splurge ball throwers didn't seem like they were gonna run out of ammo any time soon.

But still he took it better than the other two, a fact he took a little pride in. As a scientist-interrogator he was well studied in this kind of thing and thinking about it kept him occupied from the physical sensations. As for the degradation, well, he was pretty much as degraded as he was going to get, thank you, and having accepted his total humiliation didn't really care what else happened to him. But 362 and One were outraged and scared, just like any of V8's own interrogated captives had been countless times. It was almost funny. But mostly, it was just pathetic. These were supposed to be the best of the best? Couldn't they do any better than _this_? So much shouting, and wailing, and threatening, and a little crying (_not_ on 362's part, but by One, amusingly).

So Numbuh V8 just took it all and used the time productively, analyzing his situation all over like a mouse in a maze with possibly no exit. Why hadn't Fathers and the Delightfuls been splurge balled, too? Well, maybe they had their own unique punishment. Who knew. He'd see when this was over and they got back to their cells. Hopefully showers would be allowed first. He kind of also wanted some kind of food that didn't look like a video game powerup, but that was probably asking too much.

To his relief, showers weren't necessary. When the ordeal was finally over, the splurges were dried out with a tools that looked suspiciously like a bunch of hair dryers taped together, and then their hardened shells were pulled off. Even that was annoying, though... it got them clean, but the pulling process sucked at the skin in a technically not painful but really really gross, revolting way. V8 wondered if he could get some of his veggies to do that.

The worst part, though, wasn't the splurge balling itself, but coming back to their cells to find Father and the Delightful Children looking all cozy and relaxed!

"Didn't they _do_ anything to you?" V8 asked Father, feeling a sour taste invade his mouth at the unpleasant concept of talking to the arch-enemy of the KND like it was a, ugh, person or something.

"Hmm? Well, they gave us some nice monte cristos and banana splits while you were gone," Father said, gesturing to some cleaned out plates and bowls with a few crumbs still in them. "Not really the best I've ever had, but for aliens, it was a remarkably good job."

"Our sandwiches were a bit too buttery," the Delightfuls added in their five in one voice. "And they didn't use a whole wheat bread. We prefer healthier things."

Father beamed at his minions while V8 quivered in outrage, listening to 362 and One yell all kinds of nasty things across the middle space that kept the cells separate. It was weird. Why would the GKND treat Father and his brainwashed freaks so much better than supposed 'traitors' who had been the KND for practically forever?! There was no sense to it all, unless...

Unless the GKND was _scared_ of Father.

Yes. That was it. Father was the epitome of rage. While no kid had ever gotten close to him long enough to analyze the man's powers, it was even possible that anger _fueled_ all that fire and heat. Yes, the GKND was afraid of making him mad, so they captured him but treated him nicely so he wouldn't do anything dangerous. The same went for the Delightfuls because Father was so close to them. Meanwhile, a bunch of measly _traitors_ could be treated like trash, serving as safe targets for kids to vent petty resentments on! After all, there weren't any other humans that V8 had seen in the entire GKND. They were like foreigners. People didn't like people who were Different. And with One's long record of lonerism, and 362's now obvious THING, and his own... uh, less than active social skills, they just made the best targets, didn't they?

For all they knew, the GKND _knew_ they were innocent, and just wanted some scapegoats for their operatives to wail on to keep everyone happy!

But that was maybe an unfair jump in thinking to make. In any case, it didn't matter until he could prove it. What mattered right now was proving that he, at least, was totally loyal to the KND and would do anything, absolutely anything, to rid the universe of scummy adulthood forever. How could he prove that, though, having been caught by Father's dumb lies so he couldn't be taken for his word no matter what?

Not words... actions. Actions would do it.

So the GKND were still scared of Father? That was fine. _He_ wasn't. Well... he _mostly_ wasn't. Okay, fine, he was totally freaked out by Father, but still, he wouldn't let that change his mind now! Now that he had a plan. Well, the start of one. He knew what he had to do to prove his loyalty to all kiddom. There was only one course of action left to take so that he could clear his name.

Obviously, he had to find a way to destroy Father and the Delightful Children.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Sighing, Numbuh One started his seventy-fifth game of hangman on the wall. Good thing he'd had that chalk in his shoe or he'd be even _more_ bored. It was hard playing when you were playing against yourself, though. He made up the words at random and sometimes changed them around in the middle of the game, just to keep his brain busy. He liked being busy. He _lived_ for busyness. Being shut up in a cell and forced to do nothing for ages and ages was too cruel for any kid, but especially for him. No actual punishment could be as tormenting. Whatever was coming, he just wanted it over with, so he could get on with his life and do things again.

Where had he gone wrong? Maybe joining an organization he hadn't known really anything about beforehand hadn't been the brightest idea. Or perhaps he should have really made more time for his squad members in the GKND... even though they weren't as fun to hang out with as the old crew. The jokes were all alien jokes, so different he couldn't even understand them half the time... the personality quirks were less, less _fun_ somehow, and the dumbness that had been hilarious with Numbuh Four was just irritating with the GKND kids. And KlKLkleEEp certainly was no Lizzy. No innocent girl with sleeve-enveloped hands dancing around and singing her love of Rainbow Monkeys, no laidback girl always ready to break up a fight and keep cool to help everyone else keep cool, no gutsy brawler with more violence enthusiasm and bad social skills, no chubby copilot with bad jokes and even worse taste in food. None of it... none of the things from home... even if this was his new home now. He thought he would have gotten used to it now. But being in the GKND didn't feel like being home, it felt like being on a permanent vacation. At a beach resort or someplace he was sick of. He was just another operative here, he didn't know how the tech worked or what most of the procedures were, no one_ respected _him... was this how 362 felt?

What had he expected?

Had he expected to blast into the GKND and awe the bunch of 'em with his crazy mission skillz and beat up every new adult villain in the space of a month, tops?

Well... yeah, now that he was thinking about it, that was kinda what he'd expected.

Previously he'd always thought of himself as a blessing to the GKND. But now One was seeing it another way. The GKND took him, and thought of it as a reward for _him_. And now he'd screwed up and they were doing the same to him that they'd do to any operative suspected of coercion with nasty adults.

It wasn't _fair_.

But he'd never _really_ wanted fair, had he? No, he'd just wanted life to be like a game with cheat codes. He was happy as long as he kept winning. Why think about what the game was, or what the rules were, or who should be playing and how? When it was just fun to win. And if anyone asked you annoying questions, you gave them the party line. Because adults were evil, and kids had to be saved from them.

Only, at this point, left to brood with the likes of his greatest enemies just a few paces away from other operatives at least as loyal as himself, good guys and bad guys locked up together like the same kind of people, he started to wonder, if maybe... maybe...

Maybe kids weren't that much better in the long run, either?

And maybe there was a reason the war never seemed to come any closer to an end.

Kids were everywhere. So were adults. And they were nothing alike, and hated each other, and fought and fought and _fought_... and didn't Father just look so _pathetic_, right now, without his suit, trapped in a tiny box with nowhere to go, not even a piece of chalk to play Hangman with?

For the first time in his entire life, One started to ask himself where the _good_ adults were. The ones like his Dad. Shouldn't they be doing... _something_? Shouldn't they be stopping all this, somehow? Or at least _trying_?

Then it occurred to him that maybe they _had_ been doing something, and he'd thrown it away, when he'd decided that being in the GKND was more important than being his Dad's son.

The chalk snapped in his fingers. Blinking, he saw that he hadn't been writing, really, just scribbling random lines, crisscrossing aimlessly into chaos. Slowly and hesitantly, he drew a smiley face next to it. Mostly because it was the kind of thing Numbuh Three would have done. Smiley faces all over, for no reason. Just like everything else. Everything was for no reason. If the kids weren't the good guys...

But no. Kids weren't perfect. He'd known that. But they sure weren't like most of those awful adults, either! So there were occasional good ones, so what, most of them were creeps and thugs, strangling people with ties and pumping themselves full of boiling coffee to match the burning hate of their hearts. It was all the grownups' fault. It was _always_ their fault. Everything, in the long run, was their fault, their doing, their problem that got shoveled onto kids anyhow. If it weren't for adults, he wouldn't be bald! Why, he bet VInsertwhatevernumber and 362 could tell a ton of stories about all the horrible things adults had done to them personally...

He was about desperate enough to _talk_ to that V guy, too. Anything for a little distraction.

"Hey, kid, what's..." he started, then trailed off as he really _saw_ V, all hunched over with a vaguely scary look in his eyes directed at Father. "Err. You okay over there?"

V mumbled something impossible to make out.

"What's the matter, need some clean boxers?" One joked weakly. Humor was never his strong suit. Or being chummy. If only Two were here things would be different.

"I prefer briefs," V replied with a kind of absentminded iciness, not looking away from Father.

"Huh, funny thing, me too! In fact, a pair of whities saved my life once, believe it or not..."

"I don't want to hear about your underwear."

"Oh, come on! We're going to be stuck in here for who knows how long, we might as well get along while we're here."

"I'm glad you feel that way, Mr. Uno," Father broke in with sickening cheerfulness. "Why, I myself like to think of us as one big happy family."

"Whatever creepiness you're trying to imply, we don't wanna hear it," 362 snapped to One's relief. "You're a horrible person and none of us want anything to do with you."

"Oh, if only the GKND saw it that way," Father murmured with taunting fake pity.

Turned out, it was really hard to have a conversation with someone who hated your guts whose name you couldn't remember. Especially when there were multiple archnemeses in the same room. One gave up after a couple more attempts and resigned himself to more Hangman. He hung the man deliberately a lot, pretending it was Father or the Grand Brat.

They got food... well, what passed for food in the GKND anyway... and then it got dark. And they slept.

Well, One wasn't sure if Father ever _really_ slept. Maybe, like Chuck Norris, the guy just waited. But at any rate, Father laid down and closed his eyes when the rest of them did. And eventually, even for One's depressed and frustrated mind, blackness engulfed.

It was interrupted in what had to be the rudest awakening possible, by a taste of something green (One, like most kids, firmly believed that green was a flavor as well as a color) and yucky in his mouth. He spat reflexively, lips curling in disgust, waking up all in an instant. A split second after that his ears caught the shrill blerp of an alarm going off. Mission instincts kicked in and he was already on his feet and in a battle-ready stance before he even processed what he was seeing. The cells were all broken open, and the rest of the general area was twisted, melted, banged up, and full of holes.

And there was broccoli everywhere, thicker than trees in a forest.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Panting, 362 struggled with the broccoli entangling her for the nth time. Still no use. It was too strong and rubbery and thick. There was clearly only one way out of this. A very _familiar_ way.

She gave herself the luxury of a long, drawn-out sigh before digging in, ripping at the stalks with her teeth like a feral kitty. It tasted just as nasty as she remembered. Stupid V8 for going bonkers and making her relive one of the most annoying parts of her life. What made him think he could just beat up Father and the Delightful Dorks like that?! He didn't know anything about fighting, and he knew that he didn't know anything about fighting!

Which made 362's heart sink a little. All that just kinda meant that it was her fault anyway. She'd brought along someone not used to actiony missions, and he'd freaked out, and she'd been the one to select him so it was her fault. He'd snarled a few mean words at her when he'd first started the breakout-attack combo, something about THINGS always messing up decent kids, and that was probably her fault too. She was an awful leader. She couldn't inspire people like One, she couldn't make people fear her like 86, she couldn't even keep things really organized. All she could do was the stuff no one else really wanted to do.

Like eat broccoli.

So she ate, and almost enjoyed the nasty flavor, in a grumpy way. Between mouthfuls she yelled out to One, but between the annoying alarm noise and all the broccoli in the way, the sound wasn't carrying through well. It wasn't until she'd eaten a tunnel through about half the room that she got a response back.

"382?! What's going on?!"

"Where are you?!" she hollered back, spraying bits of green. For the first time in her whole life, she wished she could floss.

"I'm still in my cell, I can't get out! Did one of V(mumble)'s experiments explode or something?!"

Imagine that, Numbuh One's action heroism wasn't kicking into gear. "Stay where you are, then, I'm coming to you!" She would have sourly growled it, but it was hard to yell a growl, so she kept her disappointment to herself. Okay, she mostly didn't want to have to eat more broccoli. But that was what she needed to do right now, so she did it.

And she was halfway done with it, anyway. Kind of seemed a shame to eat that much and not finish.

When 362 got to One's cell, though, her mouth was aching almost to the point of being numb, and she was pretty happy to just pant and spit broccoli bits out while he stared at her with comical horror.

"I can't believe you _did_ that..."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"_Again_!"

She grinned up at him and he flinched back, probably because she had green teeth by now. "You get used to it."

"Really?"

"No. Did you see where they went?"

"I, uh... no. I kinda... slept through most of it, I think. I'm not even sure what happened!"

"Fanny's right, boys really _can_ sleep through anything. I think V8's gone cuckoo for cocoa puffs. He had some weapons hidden away, and suddenly he blew holes in everything and started yelling about proving his immaturity to the KND. Father and the Delightfuls got out because of how badly this place got wrecked, and I think V8 chased them."

"Great. I knew that kid was a few bacon bits short of a salad." One peered through the newly-made hole she'd gnawed, ignoring the glare she was giving him for dissing her not so subordinate subordinate. "I think I can smell the stink of Father's smoke through the broccoli coming from over here, to the left. Maybe if we track him down and stop him from hurting more innocent kids, the Grand Brat'll figure out we're really not traitors." With that, he vanished into the maze of vegetation, grunting as he squirmed through.

"But... you're still part of the GKND, won't you get in even bigger trouble if you get caught breaking out before you stop Father and his delightful backup dancers?!" she called after him, frustrated. As usual, things were happening too fast to make a proper plan, to think of the consequences, to figure out the right thing to do.

"Only if I, or _we_, get caught," he told her as she caught up, sharing a smirk.

Eh, screw it. It didn't seem like there was ever a 'right' thing to do these days anyway.

The station, still in the middle of being repaired from 362's sabotage days ago, wasn't really improved by the additions V8 and Father had made to it. Corridors and rooms were interspersed with half-melted walls and furniture and lingering smoke, and all sorts of weird vegetable growths that looked more like alien fungus than like anything even an adult would eat. Oh the bright side, it did make it easier to follow the trail. Maybe they'd get to V8 before he did anything even crazier.

On the down side there were about a jillion GKND operatives that felt like getting in their way.

Between her desperation to undo some of the damage she'd done and keep V8 out of trouble, and One's sheer bravado, they beat through the first few sets of guards, but things were quickly growing beyond their ability to handle directly. Fortunately, the GKND hadn't found 36's unvisible caping device that was hidden inside her black mission suit ankle. And it just so happened that there was energy of a charge left for about twenty minutes of sneaking around. There was just one catch.

"We kinda have to, um... hold hands," she muttered, flushing. "The caping sphere only works for another person if they're in physical contact. So yeah."

"Alright, then, whatever works!" He was still totally in mission mode. This was, after all, the sort of thing he lived for. Not... anything else. He grabbed her hand so casually that she almost jerked back out of reflex, before getting a hold of herself and activating the unvisibility.

"_ACTIVATING UNVISIBILITY CAPING BUBBLE_!" the device yelled loud enough for anyone in a million light years to hear. They both jumped in alarm.

"Oh peanut brittle! I had the stupid volume set up too high!" she snarled, more in frustration with herself than the tiny machine. She scrolled the knob all the way down even as it faded out of view, along with the rest of them.

And then it was time to run very fast and very quietly, so they didn't have to perform the probably impossible task of getting through a hallway crowded with five squads' worth of operatives without bumping into anyone.

"_This is gross_," One whispered to her.

Her skin prickled. Was he really so self-centered that he couldn't just hold hands without hating it? She even had gloves on, so it wasn't like there was sweat or anything! Maybe it was her. Maybe she was holding too tight. Or too loose, or the wrong way. Argh. Why did he have to keep making her care about stupid little things when they had big important things to do?! She had to be thinking about how they were going to calm down V8 and beat Father! ...maybe if they switched hands, she couldn't remember whether he was right or left-handed....

"_It's like walking through jello_," he went on softly, and she felt a stupidly huge amount of relief, realizing that he was just talking about the feeling of the unvisibility caping bubble.

"_Don't be such a wuss_," she whispered back, taking a moment to tease him to get her mental momentum back. "_I like it. Kinda feels like being massaged by an octopus_."

"_Ewwwww_."

Being unvisible had other useful things to it besides not having to fight other well-meaning kids. They started hearing rushed conversations about the breakout, and learned some interesting things. V8 was actually doing a pretty good job in his own nutty OCD way of keeping the collateral damage to a minimum, despite appearances. The poor kid was going all out, blowing everything he had (that had apparently been stored in a sliced onion wormhole), but he was _cleaning up_ as he went. Given the sheer firepower he was putting out, no one could stop him so far, but the station wasn't being that damaged either except in terms of getting a new vegetable-based decorating scheme. Father and the Delightfuls were doing the bulk of the damage, and it was kind of hard to stop them when V8 was in the way intent on bagging them for his personal salvation. He thought that if he mutated them into giant tomatoes, or shoved a carrot up every orifice, or something, that the GKND would somehow forgive them. And the poor kid wouldn't stay still or slow down long enough to let anyone talk even a bean sprout's worth of sense into him. The GKND were getting really worried because Father was apparently headed in the direction of the bedrooms for the highest-ranking GKND members on the whole station. There were a lot of important people there, including the Grand Brat. And the flunkies were even starting to get orders from higher up to not attack! Maybe it was the right call, since the best thing to do seemed to be to wait till V8 ran out of ammo before running in to settle things down, but if the higher ups thought their unmanned bedroom defensive tech would be enough to stop Father from doing whatever probably super-evil thing he wanted to do, they were wrong. Burnt marshmallow in a campfire wrong. Even the GKND operatives all agreed on that, they just assumed the Grand Brat had some kind of trap ready that no one knew about. 362 wasn't so sure. That big baby seemed a bit too full of itself.

Of course, that was what kids were _supposed_ to be....

She and One agreed, though, that it was their duty as kids to stop Father, even if it put them in a situation where they'd just be stuck in cells again. Just because the Brat was a fat smelly jerk didn't mean it deserved to get toasted. It wasn't about them. It was about saving kids from the tyranny of adults, no matter what the cost. Even if careers got ruined, even if she and One never got to have fun again or see each other again, even if Fanny took over the KND and wrecked it despite meaning the best, even if the GKND kept thinking they were the bad guys. No matter what the cost, that was what she had to keep telling herself, even as she kept remembering Father telling her that she was the one that counted the cost, because _someone_ had to... but Father was a liar, you could just eat candy and have fun and not pay for it, that was how life was meant to be like.

She wondered if she'd ever get to hold his hand again, and decided she was stupid for wondering. Of course she wouldn't. Not after all this was over. Not like it mattered, anyway. He didn't even care. And what exactly was she expecting him to care about in the first place?

The unvisibility device ran out of batteries once they followed the trail to its inevitable end right in front of the Grand Brat's personal bedroom, a great huge plasticy-looking blue door with a wheel set in the middle like a steering wheel looming over everything. The door was shut, and there weren't any signs of damage, and the general area was really empty and quiet.

"It's quiet," One pointed out, dropping her hand to hoist up the heavy-duty bubble bobbler he'd snatched from a GKND operative.

"I don't feel like doing that cliché."

"Suit yourself. Well, there's nowhere else they could be. Maybe the bedroom's soundproof. Let's bust in and see what's up."

"Right. Ready when you are." She steeled herself, taking a breath. Everything could come down to this. This was for One, and V8, and every kid everywhere. She wasn't a terrific fighter, but she just couldn't let them down. She'd shove a fire extinguisher through Father's ears if that was what it took. The cost... the cost was something she wouldn't count.

He gave her a glance. It was funny to see how much more obvious little things like that were when he didn't have his shades on. She still wasn't used to it. "Don't tense up so much. You never know, this could be fun."

"You're totally crazy."

"Hey, that's what it takes to be the best." He paused for a second, looking weird. "Huh. You should wear black more often. It makes your hair stand out."

"Uh... thanks." She searched her brain for something to say, anything, and came up with zilch. "Your... standard issue GKND suit goes nice with your... uh... lack of-"

"Yeah, yeah! Let's do this thing!"

It took both of them jumping up and heaving with all their weight to get the stupid wheel-knob on the door to turn, which kind of slowed the moment, but once it was loose the door was polite enough to throw itself open by itself. They dropped down and into the room beyond, ready for anything.

What they found was Father and the Delightful Children From Down The Lane playing backgammon, with the Grand Brat sitting on a Grand Brat-sized highchair unconcernedly. Almost unnoticeable compared to this totally freaky situation was the fact that V8 was there, too, tied up with subduium in a corner.

"Oh, hello there, kids," Father said cheerfully, back to his usual black-cloaked sinister self. "You've kept us waiting, I never thought I'd have time to tie two to two against my children. They've gotten quite good, you know. Allow me to shut the door. It feels a bit... DRAFTY!" With a sudden flung fireball unexpectedly breaking the tone of conversation, neither she nor One had the presence of mind to do more than dodge out of the way as the burning sphere slammed the door tightly shut.

"Grand Brat, that's FATHER!" One screeched, as if the Grand Brat could have somehow missed that. "You can't just sit there like that, are you nuts?! We're all in danger, smoosh him into cindery bits or something!"

The Grand Brat shook its head with a smile that was somewhat warped by its fat jiggling jowls and lips. "TWAITUHS SHOODN'T SAY SUSH BAD FINGS ABOUT FATHUH. SHAWW I SHPANK DEM, FATHUH?" Sausagey fingers wrapped around a massive wooden object that was almost as big as the ship-mounted weapon 362 had had to deal with when Father had first been chasing her.

"Oh, I don't think there's any need for that." Father was back to cheerful again, seeming pleased with the situation. "All kids want to be good kids. I think they just need the right motivation."

"It's the Grand Brat, isn't it," 362 said slowly with creeping horror while One mumbled in helpless frustrated confusion.

"Father's brilliance in allowing himself to be captured is unquestionable, don't you think?" the five Delightfuls chorused together, beaming. "Only a mature, sensible adult like him could improve like that."

"What are you talking about?!" One burst out, pointing his weapon in every direction at once. "I want some answers!"

"Father mixed up some truth with the lying," 362 explained, a feeling of absolute despair and certainty in their doom coming over her like never before. And somehow she was almost happy about it. Now she could just stop trying and stop caring. That was so much easier. "There _was_ a delightfulization device... and it _did_ go after the kiddiest kid it could find."

"The Grand Brat," One filled in for her, eyes widening in shock.

"That's why they treated you nice," 362 went on, redirecting herself accusingly at Father. "That's why the Grand Brat believed everything you said! And that's why they captured you in the first place, so you could give orders to the _real_ traitor!"

"That's right. And now that we've gotten past this little charade, I think I'm going to be moving into phase two," Father said pleasantly. But the backgammon pieces near him were smoking. "With a proper adult like me in charge of this entire GKND sector through the Grand Brat, things are going to be run more _efficiently_. There's going to be some _changes_ around here. Don't worry, kids. You'll grow to like it in time. _Or else_."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

They were jailed, again, and this time they were kept away from each other. For added insult, the Delightfuls and Father kept themselves quite cozily hidden in the Grand Brat's bedroom, enjoying luxurious high-ranking GKND accommodations while telling the Brat how to reorganize things more... delightfully. 362 was mostly able to note the under the table adult influence in the asteroid base through the gradual changes in her cell and in the operatives guarding her. Originally an advanced offshoot of 2x4 tech, the architecture got revamped into being more boring, more sleek and plain and clean. Like a hospital, almost. Everything was blank and white and squeaky clean... and the operatives had to scrub double time to keep it that clean. They complained a lot within 362's hearing about all the new duties they were being assigned. Mostly they didn't seem to go on as many missions anymore. It was all mind-numbing work, repetitive manual labor and filing papers and organizing things. They hated it, but since they didn't know the Grand Brat had been delightfulized, they didn't do any more than grumble. Even the uniforms changed. There were ties, and badges, and security passes, and clunky safety padding.

362 had more to do in her little cell than she expected. One day, along with her nasty 'delightful' lunch of fruits, veggies, and whole wheat bread, she got a large envelope with the tray.

"The Grand Brat wants you to work to earn your food while he's deciding on your ultimate punishment," the guard (she had, of course, gotten the freaky upside down headed badger one) told her.

Opening the envelope suspiciously, she found papers. Lots and lots of papers. And paper clips, and pens, and a stapler. Mostly the papers seemed to be forms on keeping inventory straight, and assigning the right kids to the right jobs, and double-checking everything to make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. In fact, it wasn't a whole lot different from what she'd dealt with as Supreme Leader. Just... neater. Okay, maybe all the red tape jargon and the sheer detail of all of it was kinda headachey, but even she had to admit, it was _really_ well-organized. There were safety checks in place for all sorts of things she'd never even thought of, and the length and detail of everything made sure that there were no loopholes for kids to wiggle out of doing stuff. It was really... mature.

Her skin crawled. Either Father or at least the Delightful Dorks had done this, directly. It was just too nice and neat for any kid. But this was the kind of stuff kids were being forced to live their lives by, now, and they clearly weren't having much fun with it. And now Father expected her to _help_.

It filled her with disgust, even more so for the fact she'd almost considered it before thinking it through. So what if it was a lot like her old job... it was way too extreme, way too much, and kids were miserable now! She wasn't going to help Father find new ways to make kids unhappy! The badger guard even had its jaw fur parted in the middle now because of the new _dress codes_ the documents talked about, how wrong was _that_?! She started to crumple it all up in fury, regardless of what he'd order done to her... and then changed her mind, mid-crumple. She really couldn't do _anything_ to help kids in here all by herself. And Father was, in his own way, offering her a kind of control over the situation. Maybe he just wanted to mooch off of her, and sure, he'd probably look over things to make sure everything was in order after she did the work... but still, maybe it could give her a chance to slip in little things to make life easier for the GKND kids. Even if it was only something like an extra snack break sometimes. The red tape looked pretty tight, but maybe she could find places to loosen it a little. And it would be better than doing nothing, right? Numbuh One probably wasn't doing nothing, twiddling his thumbs in his cell. He'd probably already broken out and started causing all kinds of chaos in fact. What would she say if he came to rescue her or something? 'Sorry, I haven't done anything worthwhile while you were having adventures because I'm just a pencil-pusher.'

Fine, she _was_ a pencil-pusher, but she'd push it right up Father's... whatever. He'd given her the opportunity so how could he complain if she made the most of it? And with all those forms to keep track of, things were bound to slip through the cracks. She just had to figure out what she could get away with. A self-satisfied smirk crept up her lips as she smoothed out the papers and started reading over it more closely.

Before long, it engulfed her. Maybe it was just because she didn't have anything else to do, or maybe because it all resembled Supreme Leader work so much... but before even that first day was over, she started to _enjoy_ it. Finding ways to loosen the bolts, slip in extra privileges, and generally undo as much damage as possible without any clear signs of it was kind of a puzzle to solve. And for once she didn't have to yell at anyone to do anything! If they didn't do things, it wasn't _her_ fault, anyway!

Day after day passed with more of the same, and although she didn't get anything directly telling her what was happening, she could indirectly figure out some of it by how the new paperwork she got was different from the old stuff. One time she slipped in a few extra minutes for a lunch break, and soon after she got paperwork about the repair costs from bored kids messing around during lunch because of all the free time. She _solved_ that by allotting more money to ordering extra hand-held games, and got the budget to work by putting the games on a reward system where only operatives who worked extra hard could get them, making them more productive when on duty. If there was any dissatisfaction she had with the experiment, it was that she didn't have any room to suggest new things. She could tweak numbers and rearrange categories but that was all. And she wanted to do more. Really, the GKND had run the place so sloppily... that was what happened when you left a great big baby in charge, though. She could make it _better_, if she just had the chance!

Then there came a day when Father walked in, casual as anything.

"Miss McKenzie, so good to see you again. I think it's time we had a little talk."

"I'd feel more like talking if these electrified bars weren't in the way, y'know," she shot back. "How'd you get in here without the guards seeing you?!"

"Oh, the kids all think I've been reverse delightfulized due to a technically not existing device their scientists cooked up with their cute little lab play set." He chuckled goodnaturedly. "Kids'll believe just about anything an adult tells them, especially with another kid to back it up."

"Yeah, I've noticed," she said sourly. "So, you wanna torture me or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous! You've been a very helpful young lady this past little while, and in fact I wanted to congratulate you for all the hard work you've been doing."

"I... you... what?"

"Why, through your hard work and dedication, this station is now operating at two and a half times its previous peak efficiency under the Grand Brat! Oh, don't get me wrong, I gave you the tools, but you're the one who decided how they should be used. Why, even my operations back on good old Earth have never run so smooth. Look at this floor, for instance, you could practically eat off it!"

Her bewilderment turned into self-disgust. If Father was happy with her work, then she was still below the radar, but was she really doing all she could to help the GKND kids? Had she been too cowardly, too timid, too afraid to push the envelope? What would One think of her messing around with stupid papers when he was probably out there blowing things up and spying on people and sabotaging Father's plans? He would probably be ashamed to call her a kid, let alone Supreme Leader. She was such a failure. Her head drooped in shame.

"There's just a few things I'd like to nitpick, if I may," Father went on, pulling up the chair she'd ordered to try to encourage guards to stay and talk for a while (they never did, though). "I mean, that whole rewards program thing you've got going. Fine, I have to admit, the kids like it... even my Delightful Children are salivating over earning enough points for the extra-large sports jacket. But is it really necessary to give them all this fluff? I'm no expert on child psychology but it seems to me that if we took everything in the budget we're spending on toys and games and things and just put it towards tools and fuel, we'd get a lot more done with a lot less. And they'd only have to work three more hours a day."

"Kids need to have a fun reason to work or they won't be productive," she mumbled tiredly, not even sure if she was saying it to word it in terms he'd get, or if she was saying it because it was just plain true. "Sure, you can say there's nothing technically stopping them from working more, but if they don't see a point to it that makes their lives better really soon, then their work quality will suck. That's how I always got things done in my KND, anyway, when I wasn't yelling or having 86 yell for me." She looked up, mildly curious. "How do you get adults to do stuff?"

"Fear of being burnt to a crisp, mostly."

"And that works?"

"Well... now that I think about it, usually they slack off whenever I'm not watching them. It's so hard to get people to just _behave_, you know?"

"Oh, don't get me started," she grumbled, flashing back to all the times she'd ordered kids to get things done and then watched those things not get done, for no reason at all. "Bribery's the only way to do anything. People won't ever do stuff because they _should_ do it...."

"They do when they're sufficiently, shall I say, delightful?"

"Sure, if you're happy with brainwashed slaves," she snapped, remembering that he was the bad guy. She was mad at herself for briefly forgetting. "Some of us want better for kids than that."

"Oh, please! Do you know how much safer and nutrient-nourished and disease-free the world would be if everyone just obeyed their superiors? Let me show you a little bit of just what we've accomplished so far in this little time." He put in some numbers on the new number pad that had replaced the old bit squishy button cell-locking mechanism, and the electrified bars stopped being electrified, and then melted down into the floor like warmed jello. "It's high time you've had a tour of the new base and seen firsthand what you've done to help it, my dear."

She hesitated. If he _wanted_ her to do it, then obviously he was pretty confident in being able to turn her into burnt toast if she tried to escape. And more recon was always better, right? Anything beat staying in that boring cell. She couldn't just hide forever. And if getting out for a bit meant looking over the consequences of all her dumb decisions recently, that was more than fair.

So she followed him outside, and he took her in a tour of the 'new' asteroid base, all delightful and mature and crud like that. It fully lived up to her dread-tinged expectations. Safety locks on the doors. Nutritional menus in the cafeteria. Energy-efficient lights. Compulsory supervised brushing followed by flossing after every unappetizing meal. Double-knot-tied, hard leather, squeaky and annoyingly shiny shoes. Belts. Suspenders. Ties. Retainers. Braces. Beds with neatly-folded blankets and sheets. Thermostats set at the crisp, uncomfortably chilly temperature found in offices. Beige carpets. Pastel lamps. Strict schedules with rotations to clock in for on the minute. Cubicles. All the rough parts sanded, the sticking out parts covered up, the sharp parts smoothed, and the dirty things cleaned. It was nightmarishly boring.

But, she had to admit, very grudgingly, it was safe.

And efficient.

Kids were doing what they were supposed to do. (Or else.) They were staying safe and clean and tidy. No one forgot to do stuff. Everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing all the time, and what the people around them were supposed to be doing too. They seemed like zombies, walking, hopping, or slithering as their alien bodies dictated, throughout their schedules. But they were building, maintaining, repairing, communicating, all better than ever. One of the last things Father showed her was the infirmary, always a bustling place for any kind of KND base. At least, ordinarily. The new, Father-regulated GKND asteroid base had a very strange infirmary. Besides the usual adult alterations, it was _empty_.

There were no booboos to slap band-aids on today.

At all.

In a base this massive, the idea seemed inconceivable to 362.

An idea came to her, so terrible that she had to ask it.

"What are you doing to all the kids who get hurt," she asked him lowly, terror fueling the raging courage that got her voice as hot as Father's body temperature. "Are you doing something to them because they can't work as well with a scrape or a paper cut?! I swear, this is low even for _you_, and I'll sooner jump out of a airlock than let you-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there kiddo," he said with surprising mildness, holding up his hands defensively. "This is the best part! I wanted to show you this as the last thing because I thought it'd make you happy. Don't go backsliding into your previous bratty ways when you were progressing so well, it makes me a very disappointed Father. I'm proud of the work you've been doing. You see, together, you and I, we've made big strides in streamlining the safety procedures in this little pile of juvenile filth. Things are a lot better now. There's no one in the infirmary because kids aren't getting sick or hurt anymore. Doesn't that make you happy, Miss McKenzie?"

The shadows cast by all the empty, white, clean and well-made beds in the empty, white, clean infirmary made her feel as though she was being watched. In her daze, trying to understand what he was telling her, her eyes went to Father, and down to the floor beneath him. The well-mopped, antiseptic-smelling floor. He didn't have a shadow. Of course not. He was fire, inside, just fire and burning rage and hate and punishment. That was all he was. Wasn't it? Why did he sound so _happy_ that kids hadn't been hurt?! Why hadn't he tried to hurt anyone?!

"I don't understand," she babbled, confused to painful honesty. "Don't you _want_ to hurt kids?!"

"Eh? Why would I?" He sounded very confused by the idea. "Okay, fine, I get carried away when you kids are naughty. I admit that. I have a lot on my mind, and the stress from work is unbelievable, and I get short-tempered. But everyone's being very good little boys and girls right now. Why would I want to hurt kids that behave? I love well-behaved children."

"You... you do?" she asked him, feeling as though gravity had suddenly vanished from her mental world, left becoming right, up becoming purple, copper turning into pumpernickel.

"Of course I do. You and me, Miss McKenzie, we can make this station a safer place. A more mature and organized place. For the good of all kids. And then once we've finished up this station, why can move on to the next one. You see how well we've done so far together, with barely any time to work things out? Think about how much better we'll do once we have all those charts finalized and the forms triplicated properly, and with everything nice and laminated. You're good at this kind of thing. And the kids are better off this way. Sure, the rules seem mean, but that's just because kids don't know what's best for them."

"And you do?" she asked again, her mouth dry.

"Look around you. What do you think?"

"I... I don't know what to think. Where's Numbuh One and V8?" It was a completely random question, born from confusion and desperation. The world didn't seem to make sense anymore. If adults didn't want to hurt kids, and kids really didn't know what was best for themselves, what was the point in even fighting? She was so confused!

"Oh, they tried to stir up some trouble, so we had to keep them quarantined for their own good. Don't worry, they're perfectly fine. They have crossword puzzles and some fascinating newspaper articles about the local political climate and the weather to enjoy."

"It's a space station, there is no weather!"

"At least that section doesn't have any scary plot twists, then. I hate unpredictable things. Don't you?" He chuckled.

"I... I really do," she said with growing wonder and something that was almost like awe. "I hate when things surprise me and mess up my plans. I _hate_ it."

"A little hate has its place, young lady. So does a little love. Come on, just relax a little. I'll show you the power of both."

"What are you talking about?!" She took a step back warily.

"It's okay to let your frustration out every once in a while and punish brats who misbehave! You'd feel a lot better if you did it every once in a while. And then they'd be scared of you and treat you with respect. You're growing up, whether you like it or not. But every growing girl needs some parental guidance. Try it my way for a change. You'll like it. And as much as I love my Delightful Children, I could use a daughter who has just enough common sense and maturity of her own to be able to handle things independently."

"You want to adopt me or something?! I already have parents, thanks!"

"If they were as great as all that, why did you go chasing after that pipe-stealing pest Numbuh One? And don't think I don't see the way pout whenever he gets brought up. A Father knows about these things. Young lady, you can go chasing after someone who doesn't love anyone but himself every day of your life. You'll never catch him. Don't break your heart like that. You're meant for better things. He's too busy having fun to hold out a hand to you. But a Father's arms are always open. Eh? Ehhhh?" He held out his arms as if to hug her.

It was just to fool him, she told herself. Just to trick him, so she could keep on working under the radar and making things better. And it didn't have anything to do about all the things he suddenly seemed to be creepily right about. She hugged him timidly, and felt his warm, dark embrace heat her gently all the way through her body. It felt good.

For the first time in a long time, she felt loved.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The air ducts were kid-sized, and that was the only reason Numbuh One's resistance group hadn't been caught yet. It was too expensive and annoying to resize all the ducts, so Father was trying to block them off selectively to capture all of La Resistance. Numbuh One wasn't going to let that happen, though.

Half composed of his old operatives who hadn't _completely_ not liked him (he _really_ wished he'd been a little nicer to KlKLkleEEp, even if she'd kept bugging him about going out), and the rest were kids who'd known the Grand Brat well enough to know that Something Was Up. FvafFthmq, formerly the Grand Brat's secretary and general aide, was one of their best operatives at the moment... not because he was good at spying or sabotage or anything, but because most kids couldn't blink in time if an unnameable cosmic horror suddenly popped up in front of them _right_ when the insanity reflex kicked off. Using FvafFthmq as a distraction had helped get them away countless times, and kept the Delightful Jerks, who'd been tasked with hunting them down, from ever getting too close to their hideout. So, defensively, they were doing okay.

In terms of offense and fighting off the slow, insidious adult influence that was infecting the entire station and for all they knew spreading beyond... they weren't so hot.

Too many kids were too willing to trust the Grand Brat. The ones that didn't trust that big traitor baby were intimidated enough by Father and his Delightful Freaks that they didn't want to make any waves. Lots of kids helped in little ways by supplying La Resistance with (really gross healthy) snacks and other supplies behind the scenes, but most weren't willing to stand up and fight. The last kid who'd tried to say something bad about the Grand Brat had ended up on Grand Brat-sized diaper duty for a month, and the poor kid's face was _still_... well, okay, it had been green to start with, because he was from one of Jupiter's moons or something like that, but still, he didn't look so good.

But tonight was going to change all that. Father was a sucker, he kept posting schedules for anyone to see, and even La Resistance could use them, just not in the way Father'd intended. They had carefully ignored the schedules so far to give an appearance of not being able to understand all the goobledeegook on the charts, but tonight they'd do it differently. Just when one rotation of kids was going off shift and another was coming in, they'd strike, and pin down the Not-So-Delightful Children, who were sure to oversee the procedure because they were nitpicky lil prats who liked to lord over the other kids. Father would, of course, come to rescue his freaks, and that would be their big chance to seal off that part of the station and blow it entirely into space. The kerplodiation bobombs were already planted on all the right seams. The Grand Brat would be nothing without Father and the Delightfuls around. And besides, FvafFthmq was ticked that he'd been demoted and was wanted the chance to overthrow the Grand Brat anyway. Apparently all it took was a majority vote by all station operatives, which was a lot less than you'd think, since so many operatives were just traveling, passing through on their own business.

One almost salivated at the thought, visions of nice, juicy victory dancing through his head. It would be glorious. And once they'd finally defeated Father and his in-sync minions once in for all, he could figure out everything else. Like where 362 was. He was a little worried that no one could figure out where she was or what she was doing. At one point Father had been escorting the visibly-uncomfortable blond around, but since then it was a mystery. If he'd hurt her....

He let the anger simmer its way up to a nice boil, and used that to help drive him for the mission, giving him focus and energy. So what if he hadn't slept last night, or eaten anything today? He was ready for this. He was ready for anything. With the help of his operatives, and maybe he didn't know all their specialties or names so well but that didn't matter... with their help, he was ready for anything. They'd win. They'd always win, because they were the good guys. The proud, sad-happy face of his father seeing him off into space floated up in his brain, but he melted it to nothing by focusing on the anger. They _were_ the good guys. Stupid, tyrannical adults, always telling everyone what to do. It was a conspiracy, that was what it was. And he'd put a stop to it, no matter where he was.

He watched the spiral minute hand of his alien watch tick diagonally tensely. Tick... tick... tick... tick... tick....

Tock.

"It's go time, people. Let's kick some evil adult butt."

Everything went perfectly at first. The rotation was right on schedule, of course, with the Delightfuls yelling at everyone to hurry up when they were already hurrying as fast as they could. The five in-sync freaks were so busy yelling that they didn't notice the members of La Resistance surrounding them from every available hallway, blocking off all the exits. Just as the youngest of the Delightfuls spotted One and glared with angry surprise, mouth open to issue an order, One gave the signal to charge. The Delightfuls didn't stand a chance, but they were stronger than they looked, and with the five of them all crouched together like that it was hard to really subdue them properly. They well-behaved jerks just didn't want to go down! In their wild flailing, they accidentally set off one of the bobomb lines. Smoke and sparking explosions filled the air, and part of a wall began caving in.

Something happened he couldn't have predicted.

Something just plain _weird_.

362, dressed in some awful itchy-looking skirt and blouse ensemble (she even had _pantyhose_! ugh!) ran in, high heels clicking frantically. "Darn it, Delightfuls, I told you guys not to start blowing things up just to scare the other kids! We're already behind schedule on... the... fiddly-widgets..." Her angry bellow drifted down to a bewildered mumble as she stared under in slow realization. "W... One? What are you _doing_?"

"I should be asking you that," he said grimly, as La Resistance finally succeeded in pinning down the Delightfuls, each Delightful member pinned by two operatives of the same gender (no need to be pervs about it, after all, just because they were the enemy and were gonna get blown into space to freeze into popsicles later). "Why are you wearing makeup?!"

She started, as if she hadn't known she was wearing it, reaching up to touch a cheek. "I... it was just a little... he said it made me... never mind! What's with the bobombs?! Are you crazy, those things are powerful enough to blow up the whole station if you set them wrong!"

"We know what we're doing!" he snapped back hotly, ignoring another bobomb that went off accidentally and sent smoke drifting just next to him. "This is our big plan to get Father and his pets out of here once and for all! Don't tell me he got to you, too?! You haven't been following those stupid schedules, have you?! They're death to fun and kiddom!"

"Look... I, I know this looks bad, but just stop and think a minute... schedules make it easier to get things done, and Father says he doesn't hate kids _all_ the time..."

"Are you nuts?! HE TRIED TO MAKE US INTO A CAKE!"

"He promised me he won't do that anymore!"

"And you believed him?! I never thought you were such a sucker, 362. You disappoint me." It was said impulsively, out of upset that he was seeing her acting so... grossly mature. He hated it. But even before all the words were out of his mouth he saw her face change, and when he couldn't stop himself from saying the last bit (he just _had_ to throw that in there, didn't he?), he knew things were screwed up between them again.

Her face went still and blank, and when she spoke again after a second, her voice came out colder than the coldest ice cream. In a bad way. "He was right. You never think about anyone besides yourself. All that talk you put in about doing it for other kids doesn't mean anything. It's all for the kids, right? That damaged wall panel almost hit a kid five seconds ago and you didn't even notice! Father does some bad things, but that doesn't mean you can do anything you want to stop him and have it be okay. You just want to keep play-fighting while the rest of us have to count up the cost of your fun and games." Her eyes narrowed. "Do you know how many times I had to figure out ways to pay for repairs to stuff that you damaged fighting adults? Do you know how much got spent on band-aids because people around you got hurt? I do. And you never cared. And you _still_ don't care, you big jerk."

And then, impossibly, it got even worse. One felt Father's temperature wafting up close and shimmering through the air. It was absolutely unmissable to someone as familiar with it as him. This was the plan, though. So it was okay. And even if he'd lost some bobombs and pretty much no one was in the right positions because of 362 walking in, that didn't matter, he'd improvise, it could still work. He was good at improvisation. And he'd talk some sense into stupid 362 later. He got his weapons ready. They'd have to disable or at least distract Father long enough for everyone not super 'delightful' to get out so the bobombs could finish blowing up.

Father strode in with fiery rage, bubbles on his head, and pink tentacle alien slippers. "WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?! I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I JUST STARTED WASHING MY- oh, it's _you_," he interrupted himself with disgust, glaring at One like he was a snail. "I should have known. You still owe me a pipe, you know."

"I owe you a lotta things," One confidently replied. "Come closer and we'll talk about it."

"No thanks," Father said nonchalantly. "I'll stay right here, that area doesn't look too stable... speaking of which, Rachel, sweetie, could you help out my slightly more Delightful Children? That dogpile looks like it's cramping them up."

"Rachel?" One repeated in horror, turning to confront 362. "You let him call you by your _name_?" Even 86 hadn't gotten to do that while she was on duty!

"_Haven't you ever heard of an undercover job?_" she hissed at him with quiet vehemence. The effect was kinda ruined by her yanking up a wrinkling hose.

"_And just how long were you planning to remain undercover with your stupid lip gloss and eye shadow?!_" he hiss-whispered back.

"_They're not stupid!_"

"_Yes they are!_"

"Um, kids?' Father tried to break in.

"_They're totally not, Father said they make me look pretty!_"

"_What else did Father say? Did he say that you're a big jerk who got all mature while he was taking over the station?! Because it's true! Did you get delightfulized or what?!_"

"_I was just trying to minimize the damage he was doing! And he's had some really good ideas we should think about using! Have you even looked at the infirmary lately, it's amazing how well an adult in charge can keep kids safe when there's no reason to punish them...._"

"Kids?" Father tried again.

"_What is it about Supreme Leaders that makes them all turn out like this?!_"

"_I just told you what it is, it's having to pay for the dumb things the kids under them do, but you didn't listen, you never listen! To anyone! Ever!_"

"Can we get stand up now?" the Delightful Children asked forlornly from underneath a pile of twenty other kids.

"IGNORING YOUR ELDERS IS VERY _VERY_ RUDE!" Father roared in sudden Godzilla-volume rage, sending flames spiraling all around the general area. Half of the kids around cowered or ran screaming, and One couldn't totally blame them.

The bobombs all went off.

"Oh, tiddlywinks," Father muttered, yellow eyes widening in realization and distress.

Having gone off out of order, the bobombs didn't have quite the exact effect One had wanted, but close enough. A large section of the station was blown off into the star-speckled black of space, and suddenly everyone was trying to find something to hold onto to keep from being sucked out through the hole.

The top La Resistance operative on the Delightful-suppression dog pile grabbed a light fixture, and the rest formed a chain of kids, each grabbing on to the next, with the Delightfuls all trailing at the end like a fat balloon, leaving the second to last kid in line groaning. One himself snatched onto a doorway, and Father melted a piece of wall enough to sink his fingers into it. But that left 362, who was taken completely by surprise and shrieked as she was sucked straight towards empty cold space.

Realizing a critical moment too late what had happened, One jumped towards her desperately. "RACHEL!" Grabbing on to one of her hands, he flailed around in terror for a second before finally sinking his fingers tightly into the laminated schedule on the wall, which was secured there by way too much tape and some staples.

"RACHEL!" Father shouted at the exact same time, diving towards her with a roar of flame and grabbing her other hand before securing his feet to the floor by melting it.

362 fluttered in the air like a kite as One and Father stared at each other, first shocked, and then with increasing anger.

"She's one of us!" One yelled, pulling on her arm.

"Like rainbow phlegm she is! She's all grown up now!" Father snarled, pulling her towards him.

"Ow! Guys, this kind of hurts!" 362 protested, and they both immediately relaxed... to glare past her at each other some more.

"You brainwashed her," he accused Father, staring with a hate he'd never felt before.

"I showed her the _mature_ way of getting things done," Father declared, sounding proud. "And she likes it that way. Besides, why would she want to side with a prematurely bald, pipe-stealing self-centered little rugrat like _you_?!"

"I'll answer that as soon as you tell me why she'd want to stick around someone who doesn't even know how to play Dance Dance Revolution!"

"Hey, I know how to play! I just have bad knees..."

"Can't we all just get along?" 362 begged desperately.

They thought about it. "NO!" they yelled, perfectly in sync, glaring more hate.

"Well, Father, can you at least seal up that hole before we all turn into ice cubes?! I mean, I've got a skirt on and everything!"

"Oh, oh yes, of course. I'm so sorry, sweetie," Father apologized, sending a wide blast of fire that melted large bits of metal and seared the hole shut. Everyone dropped to the floor, groaning with relief.

"Nice going spoiling the plan, _sweetie_," One growled at her.

"Well, I'm sorry, but your plan sucked," she told him primly, inspecting her pantyhose. "Oh, rainbow monkey fudge, I got a run..."

He couldn't stop just staring at her in disgust. It was like she was a whole new person or something. Even if the lip balm looked kind of nice on her... that was beside the point! And it was evil! All makeup was evil! Because adults used it!

And just as he and Father shifted their eyes uneasily to one another again and he started to tense up in preparation for the inevitable super epic dangerous yet fun battle, a voice blarted scratchily from the speakers.

"It is my extreme displeasure to announce," VDon'tCare's voice said with his usual fussy pronunciation, "that this entire asteroid base has been completely contaminated by adulthood. Through extensive observation with my spytatoes, I, as one of the sole remaining uncontaminated operatives, have come to the conclusion that this infection must be contained at any cost for the good of kids everywhere. Fortunately, my new mutant asparagolums just managed to take over the main engine reactor, and I'll be blowing us all up two minutes after I finish this announcement. I'm sorry it has to be this way, but I wanted to give you guys some warning so you could kiss your rainbow monkeys goodbye. DEFEAT TO ALL IMPERIALIST SOCIALIST RED PIG DOG SWINE PUPPET ADULT TYPE PEOPLE, FOR KIDS, AND PLAYTIME, AND... AND SKATEBOARDS! This is V(staticrackle), signing off."

One, Father, and 362 all looked at each other, and for the first time in the history of ever, they all shared the exact same opinion.

"We've got to stop him."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

GKND tech had advanced far beyond the hamsters in little wheels system of power One was most familiar with. Instead, the base was powered by giant hamster robots in giant hamster robot wheels, with little bumps and things to encourage jumping. It was all very cute. At least, it would have been, except that the whole system was clogged up with glowing green radioactive-looking vegetables. Even the veggies that weren't supposed to be green were green. The air itself was full of the stench of boiled plants. It was really gross. Father's mere presence caused some of the smaller plants to wilt, but the bigger ones stood strong, pulsing like some evil planty doom ready to destroy everything. Which, One supposed, they were.

Throughout the entire desperate run towards the engine room, he'd been highly aware that there was technically nothing stopping Father from turning around and melting him, except that there were bigger things for them all to worry about at the moment. He was ready to duck or dodge at any time, but with 362 in the way, she could be put at risk. He didn't know what Father had done to her... was _still_ doing to her... but he hated it. His one relief was that she had, very deliberately contrary to Father's commands, kicked off her impractical heels and stockings during the run, muttering about how much stupider they were than shorts and sneakers. But other than that, she still seemed practically _friendly_ with the silhouetted villain. Even if it _was_ undercover work (and _bad_ undercover work at that, in his opinion... he hadn't seen any sabotage of adult efforts outside of La Resistance!), it was way too... smooth... for One's liking.

At least the Delightfuls weren't around to complicate matters even more. Father'd told them to evacuate, along with most of the base, in case they couldn't stop VNutball in time. The fact that Father actually considered the possibility that they _could_ fail, that _he_, an arrogant super-powered adult bad guy could fail, sent a tiny splinter of fear through One's mind. He didn't want them all to turn into space-frozen veggie platters. Not even Father! And that realization, that he didn't want Father to _really_ get hurt... not in a way that put a stop to _everything_... was something else One got to be afraid of.

Maybe 362 was right. Maybe he _did_ just care about himself.

And besides, he didn't want 362 hurt either. He _never_ wanted her hurt, of course, but especially not right now. Not when they still had stuff to... _talk_ about, or whatever it was girls did to resolve these things. If she were a boy they would have punched each other a couple times and then things would be fine, but he didn't know what to _do_ with her.

Father's preferred element of attack and a few carefully thrown miniature bobombs made a hole in the vegetable jungle big enough to see through to the bean-laced core, where the V kid sat, sweating rivers and frantically tugging on different vines, prodding leaves, poking at squelchy bits. He was so caught up in the activity that he didn't even notice the intrusion.

"Almost there, almost there, almost there," he mumbled to himself. "Stupid adults... I'll never be one of them... never ever ever... have to destroy them all... destroy... them ALL... only way to insure the purity of kiddom..." He giggled, not like a maniac, but like a nervous kid who badly wanted to believe he was doing the right thing. It turned into almost a sob at the end.

"Well, well, well," Father purred, clenching a suddenly smoking fist, "what do we have here? I see a very... NAUGHTY... LITTLE BOY!"

V let out an incredibly undignified, girly squeal, hiding behind a huge leaf of cabbage, but before anything could even happen, 362 grabbed Father's arm.

"Don't hurt him!"

"Sweetie, we've been over this," Father said soothingly, patting her on the head. "Bad children need to be PUNISHED. Otherwise, how will they know when they've done something WRONG?"

One, meanwhile, crept around through the veggies, planning to sneak attack the squash-brained kid and put him out of commission while Father was distracted. Then he could grab 362 and... and, do _something_. Maybe just pick her up and run. Whatever, he'd think of something in the moment, he _always_ did.

And no one ever got hurt for it, no matter what she said about safety and junk.

Well... mostly no one.

...no one _important_, anyway.

'And who decides who is important, son?' the ghostly memory of his father's voice said in his head, and he told his memories to shut the heck up.

362 seemed, for whatever reason, confident that she could argue Father out of being his usual burn-happy self. "_He's_ not the bad one, Father, _I_ am! _I'm_ the one who made him like this... I made a bad decision selecting him for a mission he wasn't ready for, and I didn't give him any special training or anything, and then I made a lot of other bad decisions along the way that made it worse. That's why he's so desperate! He thinks I'm totally incompetent and can you blame him?! Besides, he's about to blow us all up! You've gotta admit, that's kinda awesome in a depressing way. He's so brave and smart, and he's doing it all for kids... to keep them safe. Just like you. So, so, can't we find a way to work _together_ to keep them safe? Please?"

To One's complete astonishment, Father looked mollified. "Oh, well, ah..." he hedged, fires dimming. Then he chuckled. "Alright, alright. Just stop pouting at me like that. You know I can't say no to you when you do that, pumpkin."

..._pumpkin_?! One gagged and clutched at his mouth, trying not to throw up.

"Tell you what," he went on, pulling out a colorful cube device, "I'll just delightfulize him instead. The Grand Brat took most of the power out of this little gizmo, but there's just enough left for one more kid, and it does have a targeted mode. Let me see now..."

"WAIT! Let me just _talk_ to him," she pleaded. "I'll make him see... and One, too, if you just let me _talk_ to them, I can help them _understand_..."

"There's nothing to understand." VBlah's voice was shaky, but had conviction in it that One admired. Too bad speaking was helping One home in on exactly where the kid was in all those plants, to pounce. Just a few more seconds of creeping without being spotted and he could do it. "You, you've grown up, Numbuh 362. You have a THING for One, don't think I can't tell." Shocked, One slipped on a pulsating ginormous raisin and fell with a splat. That couldn't be right. The kid _had_ to have that wrong. But... it did explain... a _lot_.... "Look at you, in your fancy adult clothes, helping Father make life more boring for kids everywhere!" Vhmph absentmindedly reached down to straighten his askew pocket protector. "It's better to be frozen in space than grow up. I'm doing everyone a big favor by doing this, and it's kind of sad that a science geek is the only one with the guts to do it."

"Everyone grows up eventually, brat," Father said with triumphant condescension. "You might as well give in. I'll unthaw sooner or later and I'll be REALLY ANGRY. You'll be lucky if delightfulization is the worst you get."

"Will you both shut up, haven't you learned by now that that kind of thinking DOESN'T WORK?!" 362 half-screamed in high-pitched rage that made even Father step back, his flames flickering uncertainly. "Rainbow monkey kaboodle, I am so SICK of all of this! Kids not doing what they're told to do for their own good! Adults taking things out on kids because they didn't like their own childhoods! Father, I'm sorry your pappy made you eat broccoli, but that doesn't mean you have to make everyone else eat it! And just because you were an unhappy kid with no one to love you doesn't mean you have to make all the other kids unhappy! Fine, maybe we all have to grow up, but that doesn't mean we have to grow up into jerks! Maybe if we stopped fighting each other for five seconds we could figure out a way to be safe _and_ have fun, so everyone could get what they wanted! Kids need adults! And adults need kids! And if that weren't true, we wouldn't have Supreme Leaders or Delightful Children, now _would_ we?!" Rant accomplished, she stood there, panting, as the two other kids and one adult stared at her with something like awe. She didn't look like a kid, or an adult, or even a teenager. She looked like....

...something really cool that he didn't know the name for.

Father could have burnt her to a crispy critter at any time, and he wasn't doing it. He was just standing there gaping like the rest of them.

Maybe that was what gave One the courage to swallow all his pride (and that was a _lot_ of pride), and step out into the open, and say something he'd never thought about saying before.

"Maybe she's right. Maybe we could try, you know... working together." He swallowed. "I mean, I've met good adults... and bad kids... and maybe she's right that I don't think things through enough. Maybe there can be peace... if we all work for it together instead of enjoying the fighting so much..." That was the problem. He _did_ enjoy the fighting. And forgot to care about what the fights did to people like 362 or the Vnumber kid, who didn't love it so much. "Father? I'll put down my weapons if you take off your suit." It wouldn't work, Father was evil, evil to the core... but if that was true, was wasn't 362 a smoking kid yet? There was some good in there somewhere.

"You... you people are nuts..." VBleh mumbled. "Contaminated... infected with, with maturity...."

Father was lost in his own little world. "My pappy loves me," Father objected whiningly. "He does. He only punished me and made me do stuff I didn't want to do because he loves me...."

"Did he ever tell you that?" 362 asked very carefully.

Fascinated, One watched as a single boiling tear made its way down Father's space-black cheek.

"Nuh... not even when I washed behind my ears..." Father whispered hoarsely.

Just as 362 went in to hug him, he stood up straighter, knocking her back with a roar of renewed fire.

"ENOUGH! Pappy punished me because I was a BAD little boy who didn't know what was GOOD for me! Just like ALL kids! Kids NEVER do what's right! Do you know how much I paid for those shoes you just threw away?! And after I just gave your allowance a raise, too! Kids are NEVER good... unless they're DELIGHTFUL! And I've had just about enough of your backtalk, young lady!" Caught up in the moment of anger, he pointed the cube, not at the vegetable nerd, but at 362. "Once I've made you delightful, you won't CARE anymore what I do to the crazy vegetable-lover!"

"NO!" One hollered, diving for her to knock her out of the way. But all the dumb veggies were in the way!

The vegetable nerd was closer, and got there a split second ahead of One. As his tiny dork-scientist body shoved 362 out of the way, he was zapped by a yellow pulse of energy from the cube. He yelled incoherently, and then collapsed with a low moan.

"Huh. Oh well. That takes care of that problem," Father said cheerfully. "And after I let this gadget sit in the quintuple-A battery recharger for a week I'll take care of _you_, Miss McKenzie."

She was staring at the collapsed kid on the floor. Very slowly, she looked up, straight into Father's eyes. Her expression was totally blank.

"I hope," she said very carefully and clearly, "your pappy never tells you he loves you. Not ever. You big. Flaming. Jerk."

Father's resulting rampage set most of the abandoned base on fire.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

They ran.

They ran.

They ran some more.

"Doesn't... he ever... run out... of fire..." 362 whined between pants as she and One jogged scampered along awkwardly with V8's unconscious body between them.

"Not... unless... ice cream... gets... involved..." One said back, his sweat-shiny bald head bobbing as he kept looking around for... she had no idea what. He probably didn't have any idea what, either. At least he was almost as tired as her. That was a little satisfying. "Did you... really... have to... taunt him... like that..."

V8 interrupted the soon to be bickering with a moan, starting to come awake woozily. "I... I don't _wanna_ steam the pistachio...."

Instantly snapping to a degree of alertness she didn't know she had left in her, 362 squeezed in tighter on V8, exchanging a meaningful look with One. They had to get to a ship and get out of here fast, with V8 secured before he could do anything dumb. They'd figure out a way to reverse the delightfulization somehow.

"Hang... in there," she told the half-conscious kid worriedly, as though he could understand. "We... we're... almost-"

"Al-most whaaaat?" Father said sneeringly, appearing before them in a crackle of fire. They skidded to a halt in front of him, feet digging into the floor several times before finding the traction to stop. "Sorry, brats, but this is the end of the road for you. Now, my new delightful minion, why don't you just get out from between those two disobedient children and stand here at my side where you BELONG, eh?"

"NO!" V8 burst out, causing all three of them to stare at him. He got to his feet shakily, eyes glazed but still defiant. "I won't... be one of YOU... not ever, ever, EVER!"

"Huh. The delightfulization cube must have a few kinks left in it. Young man, I'm going to give you to the count of ten before-"

"I don't care if you count to a bajillion-"

"That's not even a number!" Father protested.

"Shut up! I don't care _what_ you count to! Why would you expect me to join you?! You hurt people, you burnt up half my priceless experimental veggies, and you've made a total mess of this station. I mean, look at that schedule over there! You just set it on fire and you don't even know it! How sloppy is that?!"

Father glanced over his shoulder guiltily, then recovered, puffing up in anger. "I _MADE_ THE SCHEDULES AND I CAN _UNMAKE_ THE SCHEDULES! AND THEN MAKE TWENTY MORE JUST LIKE 'EM! NOW ARE YOU DELIGHTFUL OR NOT, YOUNG MAN?!"

"I... I..." V8 started to match Father's yell, then drifted lower, uncertain.

"I think he's about as delightful as he's ever gonna get," 362 broke in with a wicked grin.

"Huhn?" the other three chorused in mutual confusion.

"What I _mean_ is," she clarified laboriously, "he's already as neat and organized and prissy as a kid could ever be to start with! He labels his stuff in _Latin _for crying out loud! So it makes sense that the delightfulization didn't work on him. He's _already_ at maximum delightfulness. And he's on _our_ side." Her grin widened.

"But... that's not fair!" Father was almost pouting.

"Too bad, life's not fair," One shot out with a triumphant smirk from where he had been slowly edging towards... one of the new fire-putter-outer boxes. 362 tried not to grin even bigger for fear of her mouth getting stuck that way. She'd seen to the installation of the anti-fire protocols _herself_. By Father's _orders_. Even as One got within reach of the little red box, the two longtime enemies stared at each other, Father seemingly oblivious to the danger he was in.

"I feel like we've got a bit of a role reversal going on here," Father finally stated.

"Maybe a little bit," One conceded. "I can think of _one_ thing that's still the same, though."

"What's that?" Father asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"We still beat you!"

One smashed the box and dove aside hastily as the fire-putter-outer foam swelled up massively with a sound like a balloon letting all its air out. The blob of foam instantly engulfed Father, who shrieked and struggled, flaring with anger, but unable to escape. In just a few seconds, it covered him entirely, with only a tiny wisp of smoke being left as a sign that he was under all of it.

Shaky, sweaty, dirty but grimly victorious, the three kids looked at each other with something like shared satisfaction, for the moment all the many differences between them surpassed. V8 then pulled out a handkerchief and swabbed at his forehead.

"Wow. That was really... wow. I can't believe you guys saved me after I... yeah. Um." Looking away from them uncomfortably, he peered at the smoking foam heap, reaching out timidly to poke it with a toe. "Is he...?"

One hastily but gently pulled V8 back. "Iiiiii wouldn't," he cautioned firmly. "Let's just go. We won for today. That's enough."

"But I'm not finished dooming us all yet!"

"All the operatives have already evacuated, ya know, so there's not really a point anymore," 362 pointed out to the rapidly deflating in importance veggie geek.

"...oh."

He looked so sad, she couldn't resist patting him on the back. "It's okay. Maybe you'll get a chance to doom us all while containing adulthood another time."

V8 perked up faintly. "You really think so?"

"Hey, it could happen."

"I've seen weirder things happen on missions," One supported her, looking uncomfortable with the role.

"Aww, thanks guys. That means a lot." The scientist-interrogation specialist sniffled.

The trio walked quickly down the hallway to the dock. Bits and pieces of the place were _still_ falling apart, even though 362 had _just_ gotten done overseeing repairs to finish up undoing the damage her sabotage had done to start with. V8's veggie madness spree, and Father's tantrums had pretty much wrecked the joint all over again. It was like pushing a ball uphill only to watch it roll back down again. She sighed. What a downer. Supreme Leader work... no matter what side you were on, it was still the same kinda work.

"Sorry about the GKND base, One. And... everything. You know."

"Eh, I didn't feel like working for that big purple doofus anymore anyway. I'm too good for 'em, you know?" he bragged cockily. But his face had a kind of strain to it she'd never seen before. "I mean... if the GKND can get taken over as easy as _that_... maybe what they're trying to do isn't gonna work anyway. Maybe stopping kids from ever being adults isn't the answer, if the biggest kid of them all can turn evil just like that."

"So... you think... maybe we can all... get along?" she put out timidly, afraid to hope but hoping anyway.

"Well." He looked away. "I dunno. _Maybe_. But we won't know unless we try, right?"

"You're both bonkers," V8 shot out, bitter as some of his own broccoli. "I'd rather be a frozen cucumber than play nice with adults."

"What makes you so sure you're not kind of an adult already?" 362 asked, somewhere between teasing and affectionate. He was such a fanatical little dork. She really should have let him stay in the lab, doing what he did best. "You _did_ get hit with the delightfulization ray, and nothing happened."

"It was obviously malfunctioning. A fluke. Poorly-designed adult technology," he insisted huffily. "Oh. One moment, I seem to have dropped my magenta pen, it's the one I use for labeling the vegetables that bud flowers between eight and ten centimeters when fully grown..."

One and 362 looked at each other, then at V8, and then they both simultaneously bapped him gently on the noggin.

"Owwwww! What was that for?! And I have to say, Supreme Leader, if you still _want_ to be Supreme Leader, that's really no way for you to act. It's very undignified for someone of your rank...."


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Smoldering (in every single meaning of the word), Father watched through a porthole as a ship with three disobedient little children shrunk to a tiny speck in space, no different from the stars. Even at this distance, he could have possibly hit them with a good, solid gout of fire, or just caught up with them through any number of pyrotechnimagical tricks. Still, the foam had left him feeling all cold and depressed, and he didn't want to bother. It certainly wasn't because he didn't _want_ to utterly blast the insolent kids into cinders. He just didn't _feel_ like it. Like every other time he'd decided it wasn't worth the effort, and let them slip away. They never seemed to want to stay on their own. Not without... extreme measures. Oh well. He didn't want a new daughter anyway. His two delightful daughters had been getting a wee bit jealous.

He still didn't know if that bald rebel had his pipe or not, anyway, and couldn't even think of blowing him up while until its whereabouts had been discerned. Father was very careful to think the word 'discerned.' It was a good word. A mature, adult word for a mature adult like him. He only let them get away because he didn't feel like beating them.

Stupid doodoo brains.

Alone, he walked throughout the station, watching it shudder and burn and fall all to bits. Well, he could always build a new asteroid station. This one had been made all wrong, the foundations had been badly planned out, and what kind of dummy made a base with ventilation ducts big enough for kids to fit into? The next base he ran would have someone more competent in charge than a giant alien baby. Someone with a college education, and bifocals, and a calculator!

Then maybe everything would turn out alright.

...probably not, though.

Father heaved a sigh and leaned against a wall, watching it all burn. Everything burned. Sooner or later.

"Father?" five familiar voices piped gently.

He turned to face his Delightful Children, scowling. "I thought I told you to escape! You're getting one less birthday this year!"

Their heads drooped, disconsolate as puppies whacked with a newspaper. "We're sorry, Father. We didn't mean to upset you. But we couldn't leave you here all alone with those spoiled, misbehaving kids! We could never have forgiven ourselves if you had been hurt trying to protect us. Please forgive us, Father."

He held out for a moment, then gave in. "Awww, c'mere kids... it's okay... group hug!" He embraced them all. "Maybe only one-_half_ less of a birthday." He didn't want them to know, but somehow, making those cakes just got less and less worth it every time. Besides, all that sugar was liable to cause cavities.

"We love you, Father," they said tenderly, hugging with a socially acceptable medium amount of pressure.

"Of course you do, kids," he muttered wearily over their heads. "Because I didn't give you a choice."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

They made it back into KND airspace without any incidents beyond a giant spaceworm trying to eat the ship (the very last of V8's veggies fixed that one) and a failed space bandito ambush ('Your potato chips or your lives!' ended up being 'neither'). They just started to run out of fuel when they got near to the Moonbase. Which was fine, 'cause they could have used the drifting time before facing the music. None of them had really talked to each other about what was going to happen or what they wanted to happen when they got back. In fact, they'd pretty much specifically avoided talking about anything that wasn't related to the asteroid weather or the cruddy food.

When One _did_ talk about the KND, it was to mutter about how he wouldn't mind seeing his old friends again, for a vague amount of time without commitments or expectations specified. And he talked about it mostly to her, because he and V8 still got along like two ticked off deer with their antlers stuck together. But he and 362 didn't look at each other much. She couldn't seem to focus on him without blushing for some reason, and he didn't want to make her self-conscious so he didn't stare.

V8 had messed it all up, was the problem. V8, who was quietly flossing his teeth and cleaning the ship with disinfectant and doing everything he could to not have to talk to either of them for more than half a minute at a time. Because that would involve feelings and confrontations and stuff, and there wasn't a kid on board who wanted to deal with that junk.

Especially not her.

The way V8, who'd been so loyal to her before this mission and everything had gone sour as his broccoli, had snarled out 'THING' just ran over and over again in her mind. He thought she had a THING for One. Just because she'd gone off to fetch the bald dork back with nothing more than a scientist-interrogator for backup. And argued in the face of some of the highest GKND authorities. And kind of kidnapped him a little bit. And gone against every instinct she'd ever had to do reckless, unSupreme Leaderly things from one day to the next. And lied to everyone about all of it.

Alright, fine, so maybe she'd gone a little overboard, that didn't _mean_ anything. So she'd missed him, a little, as a friend, she could admit that! And her pride had been hurt, so naturally she'd gone a little crazy. Was it so wrong to want someone to care about you? Even for the second when she'd thought that maybe, maybe even _Father_ could be nice, could _care_ about her... was that so wrong?

Maybe Fanny could have cared. Maybe. But there was rank between them, and rank was lonely when you were the highest one there was. It took someone equally high to bridge that gap. Or someone who didn't respect rank much at all, like One. He was an irreverent, smarmy, smooth-talking jerk who stuck to his ideals and somehow always made it turn out alright, except for the collateral damage. Which no one cared about except her. Because it was the Supreme Leader's job to count those things.

Again, and again, and again.

_Liked_ him?

Hah!

She maybe even hated him.

A teeny bit.

"362? You okay?" The voice of the same kid he was brooding over drifted up from behind, sounding almost concerned. She kept resting her head on the nice cool metal of the ship's side. She couldn't look at him. He still didn't look right without his shades, as far as she was concerned. "Um. Rachel?" One put a hand on her shoulder lightly, casually, and somehow it made an icy tendril run through her, just a bit.

She looked up with a smile, trying to at least fake normal. "Only a few more minutes till we dock. Guess this is it, huh."

"Heheh, yeah. I, uh, guess so." They looked at each other. They hadn't looked at each other really solidly since they'd left Father behind on that asteroid base. "So... what are you gonna do? I mean, you mentioned about maybe retiring or something... but if you wanted to spin things different, I wouldn't... I mean, I don't see any reason why you can't still lead the KND...."

"I dunno." She really didn't. "One thing's for sure, though," she said with a crooked smirk, "I definitely can't leave 86 in charge. She'd like it, but the boys... not so much. I really don't know what I'll tell them. A lot depends on what V8 wants to say, I guess. He's been through the most for the least reason, out of all of us. I'll follow his lead."

"Okay, if that's how you want it." His hand dropped. "Just so you know, all our differences aside, I still think you've been a great leader. And a great kid. And... whatever you grow up to be, I'm sure that'll be great too."

"I... I think I need someone to tell me that. Every once in a while," she muttered, looking down at the floor with a blush. "I try so hard... I really do... and it's like... no one appreciates it..."

"Sometimes the only thing you get back from trying hard is knowing that you tried hard. But yeah... if you need a word in your ear every once in a while, I don't mind hanging around. You know. I mean, there's no real reason for this stupid gap between the GKND and the planetary KNDs anyway. I figure, maybe I could act as a lesion to get people in both bunches cooperating better."

"Liaison," she correctly automatically, mindlessly. Between V8 and Father, her vocabulary was really pretty well-developed for a kid her age.

"Yeah. That." He cleared his throat. "So. We're almost there. Is anything you wanna do, any last minute instructions or stuff like that, before everything hits the fan..."

She thought about it for a second, as V8's 'THING THING THING' bounced around in her head. It bothered her a little less now, for no reason that she could figure out. Oh well. There was only one thing really that she wanted to do, and it was silly and childish and girly. But she _was_ silly (sometimes), and she _was_ a child (_most_ of the time), and she _was_ a girl (_all_ the time). "I want a rainbow monkey plushie to snuggle," she announced matter-of-factly, leaning against him. "And since I don't have one, you'll just have to do."

He eeped, arms halfway going around her and then just hovering in the air uncertainly. "Um. Yeah. Okay. Are you sure... this is the _only_ thing you wanna do..."

She pressed her head into his warm chest a bit, sighing. "Yeah. It really is."

"You're weird," he said after a long moment.

She smirked into his shirt. "It's a leadership trait."

**CURTAINS FALL**

**(and 86 starts yelling...)**


End file.
